CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES FROM KAOS
NEW YORK THEATRE WORKSHOP
TO PRESENT
KAOS
CONCEIVED, DIRECTED AND CHOREGRAPHED
BY MARTHA CLARKE
TEXT ADAPTED BY FRANK PUGLIESE
DRAMATURGY BY GIOVANNI PAPOTTO
BASED ON THE STORIES OF
LUIGI PIRANDELLO
AND THE FILM KAOS
BY THE TAVIANI BROTHERS
BEGINNING PERFORMANCES FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10
AND OPENING MONDAY, DECEMBER 4
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 24, 2006 - New York Theatre Workshop Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director Lynn Moffat have announced that KAOS, conceived, directed and choreographed by Martha Clarke, text adapted by Frank Pugliese and dramaturgy by Giovanni Papotto, will begin performances Friday, November 10 at 8:00pm, at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery. Opening night is scheduled for Monday, December 4 at 7:00pm.
KAOS is a new theatrical work by Martha Clarke whichstages parts of four Luigi Pirandello stories featured in the Taviani Brothers’ 1984 film Kaos. Taking its title from the Sicilian hamlet where Pirandello was born, KAOS (pronounced KAH-ows, after the Italian) is set at the dawn of the twentieth century and portrays common people in mystical situations, heavily influenced by poverty, violent political unrest and social changes set in motion by mass migration. Through a fusion of text, dance movement, and live music based on Sicily's historical North African roots and its evocative folk songs, Martha Clarke tells the stories that Pirandello witnessed in the harsh Sicilian landscape, as he captured a culture and language on the brink of radical change. The lyrical and haunting stories tell of a lonely mother desperately trying to make contact with her children in America, a bride discovering that her new husband goes mad with each full moon and a clan of peasants fighting for the right to have a cemetery on the land they have cultivated for generations.
KAOS will be performed in Italian with English surtitles.
James Nicola, NYTW's artistic director says, "For this production of KAOS, NYTW has united Italian-born artists with Italian-American artists. By using the common link—the Italian language—and the different ways the actors will speak the language on stage, we hope to bring to the fore the aftermath of the inevitable social changes that Pirandello saw in their incipient moments. The actors all undergo a striking physical transformation when they speak the Italian language in the text; they suddenly embody the passion and life that Pirandello richly depicted in his writing."
Nicola continues, "I have wanted to present a theatrical adaptation of Pirandello’s short stories for a very long time. When Martha Clarke came to NYTW in 2002 with Vienna: Lusthaus (revisited), I immediately knew that her expansive imagination, ability to paint vivid theatrical pictures, and facility with both theatre and dance made her the ideal artist to realize this complex project."
A founding member of Pilobolus Dance Theatre and Crowsnest, Martha Clarke has choreographed for the Nederlans Dans Theater , the Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Rambert Dance Company and The Martha Graham Company, among many others. As a director Ms. Clarke’s many original productions include The Garden of Earthly Delights , Vienna: Lusthaus , Miracolo d’amore , Endangered Species , An Uncertain Hour , The Hunger Artist , and Vers la flamme . She directed the premiere of Christopher Hampton’s Alice’s Adventures Underground at the Royal National Theatre in London . In opera Ms. Clarke has directed The Magic Flute for the Glimmerglass Opera and the Canadian Opera Company, Cosi fan tutte for Glimmerglass, Tan Dun’s Marco Polo for the Munich Biennale, the Hong Kong Festival and the New York City Opera, and Gluck’s Orfeo and Euridice for the English National Opera and the New York City Opera. She recently directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the American Repertory Theatre and a new music/theatre work, Belle Epoque , based on the life of Toulouse Lautrec at Lincoln Center Theater. Future work includes a new collaboration with Alfred Uhry for Lincoln Center Theater. Ms. Clarke is the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” Award and grants from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation.
Frank Pugliese is a graduate of Cornell University where he won the Forbes Herman award for playwriting and was Artistic Director of the Whistling Shrimp Theatre Co. He received his MFA from the NYU Dramatic Writing Program, where he was named "Graduate Student of the Year," and was NYU's playwright in residence at the Royal Court in London. Mr. Pugliese was honored by New York University's Tisch School of the Arts fifteenth anniversary as an outstanding alumnus in the field. He is a proud member of Naked Angels, Drama Dept., and is co-founder of both The Writer's Group and The Screenwriter's Collective. He is also a consultant for the Cherry Lane/Alternative Mentor program for young playwrights and currently sits on the artistic committee for Naked Angels. Mr. Pugliese teaches screenwriting and playwriting at Columbia University and in the Graduate Playwriting program at The New School. A collection of his plays was published by Broadway Play Publishing in 2001. Plays include: Aven'U Boys (Obie Award), The King of Connecticut, The Talk, The Alarm, Matty's Place, The Summer Winds, "Hope" is the Thing with Feathers and The Talk. Screenplays include: Aven' U Boys, 29th Street, Born to Run, Dion, Infamous, Shot in the Heart and Italian.
Giovanni Papotto is one of Italy’s and Europe’s most acclaimed young playwrights and dramaturgs. In 2003 Mr. Papotto began work on the ambitious “Domani” pro ject by Luca Ronconi and Walter Le Moli, organized by the National Theatre of Torino for the XX Winter Olympiad, which was held this past January in Torino, Italy. “Domani” was an original theatre pro ject involving five original plays and over 150 actors. Mr. Papotto was selected as the chief dramaturgical and literary advisor to all five plays, as well as the assistant director for TheSilence of Communists, one of the five plays. The Silence of the Communists received such unanimous critical acclaim that the production is currently touring throughout Italy and performances are scheduled through 2007, long after the Olympic celebrations for which it was intended. In 2005, in conjunction with the National Theatre of Naples, Mr. Papotto developed and promoted a landmark festival on contemporary dramaturgy titled: “La Polonia dal Vivo!” (“ Poland Live!”). The festival focused on the young generation of writers to emerge from the central countries of Eastern Europe soon after they joined the European Union. Mr. Papotto wrote a book about his experiences on the pro ject titled “ A Est” (“ To East”), which was published in March 2005 in Italy by L’Ancora. Mr. Papotto has written and developed radio plays which were performed for broadcast on RadioTre, Rome’s premiere radio station. His next project is Pointless, a play written in collaboration with scientist Brian Greene ( Columbia University) planned for debut in June 2007 at Teatro Metastasio ( Prato, Italy) and Teatro Nacional ( Lisbon).
The cast of KAOS is Felix Blaska, Sophie Bortolussi, George de la Pena, Daria Deflorian, Vito Di Bella, Lorenzo Iacona, Jim Iorio, Gabrielle Malone, Matthew Mohr, Rocco Sisto, Christina Spina, Rebecca Wender, Robert Wersinger and Julia Wilkins. The musicians are Irving Grossman, John T. La Barbera and Richard Sosinsky.
Scenic design for KAOS is by Scott Pask; costume design by Donna Zakowska; lighting design Christopher Akerlind; projection design by Tal Yarden; music direction by Jill Jaffe; associate music direction by John T. La Barbera; and the production stage manager is Anita Ross.
New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) is a leading voice in the world of Off-Broadway and within the theatre community in New York and around the world. Since its founding in 1979, NYTW has emerged as a premiere incubator of important new theatre, honoring its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape our lives. In addition, NYTW is known for its innovative adaptations of classic repertory. Each season, from its home in New York's East Village neighborhood, NYTW presents five to seven new productions, over 80 readings, and numerous workshop productions, for over 60,000 audience members. Over the past twenty-five years, NYTW has developed and produced over 100 new, fully staged works, including Jonathan Larson's Rent, Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul, Doug Wright's Quills, Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde, Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla, and
Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away, and A Number. The 2002 remounting of Martha Clarke's seminal work Vienna: Lusthaus and subsequent American tour was one of the longest-running productions in NYTW's history. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies, and minority artist fellowships. In 1991, NYTW received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement and in 2000 was designated to be part of the Leading National Theatres Program by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
KAOS plays at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery. The regular performance schedule is Tuesday at 7:00pm, Wednesday through Friday at 8:00pm, Saturday at 3:00pm and 8:00pm, and Sunday at 2:00pm and 7:00pm. The running time is approximately one hour and 30 minutes with no intermission. Tickets are $65 and may be purchased on-line at www.telecharge.com, 24 hours a day, seven days a week or by phoning Telecharge.com at (212) 239-6200. For exact dates and times of performance, call Telecharge.com.
Maintaining its commitment to making theatre accessible to all theatergoers, NYTW continues its CheapTix program in which all tickets for all Sunday evening performances will cost $20. Tickets may be purchased in advance, payable in cash only, and are available in person only at the NYTW Box Office. And for all performances, student tickets cost $20, based on availability, and can be purchased in advance from the NYTW Box Office with valid student identification. The NYTW Box Office is open 1:00pm to 6:00pm, Tuesday through Saturday.
Major support for the development and production of KAOS has been provided by The Tony Randall Theatrical Fund.
Special thanks to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for supporting international productions at New York Theatre Workshop.
Development support for KAOS has been provided by New York State Council on the Arts, Stephen and Cathy Graham, and the Irene Diamond Fund.
Travel support for the New York Theatre Workshop production of KAOS has been provided by Alitalia.