CLICK HERE FOR IMAGES FROM A VERY MERRY UNAUTHORIZED CHILDREN'S SCIENTOLOGY PAGEANT

…the inspirational story of one teacher, author,
explorer, atomic physicist, nautical engineer,
choreographer, and horticulturalist named
L. Ron Hubbard who motivated millions…
…and made some as well.

NEW YORK THEATRE WORKSHOP PRESENTS
LES FRERES CORBUSIER’S ACCLAIMED HOLIDAY CLASSIC

A VERY MERRY UNAUTHORIZED CHILDREN’S SCIENTOLOGY PAGEANT

BEGINNING WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29
OPENING NIGHT SET FOR SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10

 

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) will present a revival of the award-winning Les Freres Corbusier production of A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant, a musical based on the beliefs of the Church of Scientology, with book, music, and lyrics by Kyle Jarrow; from a concept by Alex Timbers; directed by Alex Timbers, beginning performances Wednesday, November 29 at 7:00pm at NYTW’s 4 th Street Theatre, 83 East 4 Street. The opening night is set for Sunday, December 10 at 3:00pm.

In A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant , a cast of grade school children, portraying Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, John Travolta, and other less starry Scientologists, brings the controversial Church of Scientology and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, to jubilant life in story and song. This bizarre holiday classic—part avant-garde performance art, part children’s theatre—based on the actual principles of Scientology tells the seriously unbelievable life story of founder L. Ron Hubbard using the idiom of a children’s Christmas pageant.

A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant was first presented off-off-Broadway in 2003 at The Tank theatre where it opened to rave reviews and international media attention. It played a sold-out run, later transferring to the John Houseman Theatre for a limited commercial engagement and winning a Village Voice OBIE Award. The New York Times called the Scientology Pageant “the gutsiest gimmick in New York theater for 2003... a spooky, sharp-toothed smile of a show... a cult-hit blueprint for a young generation that prefers its irony delivered with not a wink but a blank stare." New York magazine called it "a holiday classic-to-be!" Time Out New York wrote "wonderfully weird…refreshing...subversive” and the New York Sun said, “No one has an excuse to miss [it]."

In 2004, Les Freres produced the Scientology Pageant at Los Angeles ’s Powerhouse Theatre where it received two BackstageWest Garland Awards and played to sold-out houses. The Los Angeles Times deemed it "an instant cult classic...Threatens the kidneys...The mix of pastorale, Dianetics demo, and Bill Melendez "Peanuts" special leaves irony to its audience, ending on a coup-de-théâtre that is thrilling and chilling." Variety wrote "The artless innocence of a children's holiday pageant provides the deceptively benign backdrop for this deeply probing and ultimately disturbing query into the history of guru L. Ron Hubbard. You will laugh till it hurts!"

Alex Timbers is Artistic Director of Les Freres Corbusier and directs all of the company’s works. He is the recipient of OBIE and Backstage West Garland awards. In February 2005 he was profiled in The New York Times as part of a feature on up-and-coming theater artists, entitled “Nine to Watch, Onstage and Off.” He is a 2005 Drama League Fellow, a 2006 Sagal Directing Fellow at Williamstown Theatre Festival, and former President of the Yale Dramat.

Kyle Jarrow is a Brooklyn-based writer and musician. He writes for film and television as well as for the stage and he plays in the glam rock band The Fabulous Entourage. He won an OBIE Award for A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant, which also had a successful run in Los Angeles in fall 2004. His play Armless won the Overall Excellence Award at the New York International Fringe Festival, and productions of his plays President Harding is a Rock Star and Gorilla Man played in New York to critical acclaim. Kyle was a 2005 Dramatists Guild Fellow, a runner-up for the 2002 Princess Grace Playwriting Award, and winner of the 2001 John Golden Prize. His band recently released its debut full-length album Play Nice Now.

New York Theatre Workshop (James C. Nicola, Artistic Director; Lynn Moffat, Managing Director) 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.

Called a “punk post-modernist theater company” by Paper Magazine, Les Freres Corbusier (Alex Timbers, Artistic Director; Aaron Lemon-Strauss, Executive Director) is known for its exhaustively researched, topically relevant, comically avant-garde theatrical creations. The company discusses academic issues in a theatrical frame that is both accessible for an everyday audience, and bizarrely educational. Its Village Voice Best of New York 2004 citation declares “high school history classes and PBS docs could learn a thing or two from the perverse pageantry of Les Freres Corbusier.” A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant transferred Off-Broadway, won an OBIE Award, and spawned a cast album on Sh-K-Boom Records. Boozy—an irreverent exploration of urban planning—also transferred Off-Broadway, was named one of the top 10 shows of 2005 by both the New York Daily News and Time Out New York, and the script was published by Theater Magazine (Yale School of Drama/Duke University Press). The 2006 Les Freres production of Heddatron was lauded for achieving, “truly original, theatrical transcendence” by Ben Brantley of the New York Times. The company’s most recent production, Hell House, a nearly exact re-creation of the thousands of hell houses staged by Christian Evangelicals during the Halloween season, was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine. Despite its name, Les Freres Corbusier is not, in fact, French.

The cast of Scientology Pageant is Dahlia Chacon, Hudson Cianni, Lauren Kelly, Jolie Libert, Steven Lobman, Elizabeth Lynn, Sean Moran, Kat Peters, Alex Swift, and William Wiggins.

The scenic design for Scientology Pageant is by David Morris; the costume design is by Jennifer Rogien; the lighting design is by Juliet Chia; the musical direction is by Gabriel Kahane.

A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant performs Wednesday and Thursday at 7:00pm ; Friday and Saturday at 7:00pm and 9:00pm ; and Sunday at 3:00pm at NYTW’s 4 th Street Theatre, 83 East 4 Street. Scientology Pageant runs through Sunday, January 7. Tickets are $25-$35 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. For more information about Scientology Pageant, visit lesfreres.org.