After smash runs in Boston, Seattle, Edinburgh, and Prague, A Day In Dig Nation arrives at New York's avant-garde theatrical hotbed, Performance Space 122. A mash-up of media, sound and live performance, this one-person adventure, performed by Michael McQuilken, features Rex, a man so consumed by technology that he forgets how to communicate with actual people.
Produced by Flying Carpet Theatre, A Day In Dig Nation follows in the company's tradition of developing exciting emerging voices in the American Theatre. The FCT has introduced several dynamic artists to New York including
Robert Lopez (Tony-Award,
Avenue Q) – by producing Robert's 1001 Nights, his first professional musical-- and
Geoff Sobelle (Drama Desk Nom., All Wear Bowlers) by presenting his first professional clown show, The Dancing Handkerchief.
Like prior FCT productions A Day In Dig Nation boasts tremendous young talent. Michael McQuilken (Backstage West Garland Award and Seattle Times' "Sammy Davis Jr. Award") and Tommy Smith (Julliard Playwrighting Alum, Page 73 Fellow) the co-creators, have already seen their earlier collaborations presented at The Williamstown Theatre Festival and The O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. FCT Artistic Director Adam Koplan conducts the on-stage action in their latest multimedia entertainment
Rex, a somnambulist office drone, leads a dreary existence. When not pushing around a mouse in a fluorescent hellhole, he spends his time gobbling frozen dinners, zoning out on televised images and avoiding contact with real human beings (his mother, ex-girlfriends, etc.). But as his media-drenched life plods on, Rex becomes increasingly immersed in waking fantasies – fantastically represented with lush foley sound design and full-throttle projected imagery. Unable to distinguish the real from the illusory, Rex is forced to make a decision that threatens to burst the womb-like comfort of his modern existence.
A Day In Dig Nation weaves a spellbinding tale of crisis and redemption in this exhausting technological age. Think
A Christmas Carol meets The Wooster Group; It's a Wonderful Life on an acid trip.
Michael McQuilken (Co-Writer, Performer, Video Design, Composer, Foley) works as a composer, musician, writer, actor, director, recording engineer, video designer, graphic artist and inventor of new instruments. Michael performed a live score for
Bartlett Sher's 2002 production of Nickel and Dimed at the Intiman Theatre (Seattle) and the Mark Taper Forum (LA), earning him a Backstage West Garland Award. He wrote the music for Tommy Smith's musicals Demon Dreams (produced at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2006) and The Tale (developed at The 2006 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference). A long-time member of Flying Carpet Theatre, he has composed scores for the company's touring productions of The Mystery of Chung Ling Soo, Liliom and Extropia. Michael co-founded the Seattle arts collective Collaborator, where he served as the company's concept generator, composer, director, writer, designer, carpenter and seamstress. Collaborator's original productions of Extropia and Paper Airplane were met with critical praise; Seattle Weekly named Extropia one of the three best shows of 2003. Michael also received acclaim for co-writing and composing an original avant-garde musical, Ballyhoo, the "best play" of the 2000 Seattle Fringe Festival. Currently, he is working on a self-generated musical project for Jakob Lodwick's web-centric non-label Normative. This Fall, Michael will begin graduate studies in directing at Yale University.
TOMMY SMITH (Co-Writer) is a New York based playwright and director. His plays include The Wife, White Hot, Sextet, Air Conditioning, Caravan Man (with
Gabriel Kahane) and A Day In Dig Nation, Demon Dreams & The Tale (with Michael McQuilken). His work has been seen at HERE Arts Center, The Flea Theatre, The Ontological Theatre, 78th Street Theatre, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Huntington Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, among others; produced internationally in Prague, Edinburgh, Athens and Montreal. He is a two-time winner of the Lecomte du Nouy Prize for emerging writers (2005 and 2006), a graduate of The Juilliard School's Playwriting Program, and the 2008 Page73 Playwriting Fellowship. Publications include White Hot in the 2008 New York Theatre Review and Streak in "Laugh Lines: Short Comic Plays", printed by Vintage. Tommy co-created (with Reggie Watts) the theatre piece Disinformation, seen at the 2008 Under The Radar Theatre Festival at The Public Theatre, The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's 2007 TBA Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Painted Bride (Philadelphia) and The Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh). Their new work, Transition, will premiere at the 2008 PICA TBA Festival in September.
ADAM KOPLAN (Director) is a New York writer/director and the founding artistic director of The Flying Carpet Theatre Company. Under Adam's leadership, The Flying Carpet Theatre has premiered multiple productions and toured the United States and Europe. Adam has directed nine FCT productions, including 1001 Nights, The Dancing Handkerchief, Man of Infinite Mystery, The Eleventh Hour, Extropia and A Day in Dig Nation. The Mystery of Chung Ling Soo, a play that Adam co-wrote as well as directed, toured Edinburgh, Dublin, Clonmel and Atlanta, playing to sold-out houses and garnering five star reviews. His most recent American production, Liliom, opened at Atlanta's 7 Stages Theatre and was named a "Best Bet" by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. In addition to his own company, Adam has assisted Barlett Sher on Nickel and Dimed (The Intiman),
David Warren on From Above, David Petrarca on The Water Children (both at Playwrights Horizons) and Jon Jory on The Game of Love and Chance (The Alliance). Training: M.F.A. in directing from the University of Washington, B.A. from Swarthmore College. Member: Lincoln Center Director's Lab.
The Flying Carpet Theatre is a New York based company that generates work fusing vaudeville style entertainment – mime, circus, conjuring, puppetry, dance and clowning – with a special eye towards nurturing new bold voices. Over the past few years, FCT has fostered nine world-premiere productions, often in Atlanta, where the company has a second home. FCT began its life by producing 1001 Nights, an original musical by
Robert Lopez (Tony Award for
Avenue Q). The company's The Mystery of Chung Ling Soo won the Creative Loafing Award for Best Touring Show to Atlanta and then traveled to Europe for engagements in Edinburgh, Dublin, and Clonmel. FCT's 2007 works – Extropia and A Day In Dig Nation – opened at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to wide acclaim and continue to tour, including a recent engagement of Dig Nation in Prague. Flying Carpet is pleased to generate much of its original work through generous residencies at Emory University and Swarthmore College.
Performance Space 122 is New York's ultimate destination for cutting-edge theatre, dance, music, live art and cross-media. Founded in 1979, Performance Space 122 is dedicated to supporting and presenting artists whose work challenges the traditional boundaries of dance, theatre, music, and performance. Committed to exploring innovative form as well as material, Performance Space 122 is steadfast in its search for pioneering artists from a diversity of cultures and points of view.
A Day In Dig Nation runs August 13 – 23, every night at 8:30pm. (No show on Tuesday, August 19.) Tickets: $20 each, $15 (students/seniors), $10 (P.S. 122 members). Tickets may be purchased online at
www.ps122.org or via phone at (212) 352-3101. Performance Space 122 is located at 150 First Avenue at East 9th Street, New York, New York 10009.
www.ps122.org.
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