HERE begins its 2015-2016 Producing Season with Genet Porno, by HERE Resident Artist Yvan Greenberg / Laboratory Theater. This production, developed through the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), marks a premiere. Genet Porno plays a limited engagement September 9 - 26 at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue, just below Spring Street).
Love and betrayal are no strangers to Divine, the cross-dressing gay prostitute at the heart of
Jean Genet's 1943 novel, Our Lady of the Flowers. Her story of forsaken desire collides with the 21st century confessional video blog of a real-life porn star in Genet Porno, a psychosexual melodrama that exposes our contemporary culture of narcissism and the consequences of blurring our public and private lives in an epic emotional journey from light into darkness.
This new work by
Yvan Greenberg, based on
Jean Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers weaves live and pre-recorded text, lipsynching, choreography, cinematic soundscore and video projected lighting into a multi-layered theater piece.
Genet Porno, directed by
Yvan Greenberg for Laboratory Theater, features
Oleg Dubson,
Yvan Greenberg and Joe Joseph. Lighting Design is by Ayumu "Poe" Saegusa. Sound Design and Video Projection are by
Yvan Greenberg.
Yvan Greenberg founded Laboratory Theater in 2001 and has directed the ensemble in eleven original pieces. His work has been presented in New York by PS 122, The Brick Theater, Dixon Place, The Tank,
HERE Arts Center, chashama,
New Dramatists, The Performing Garage, The Knitting Factory, and Movement Research, among others. Greenberg received a MacDowell Fellowship in 2006. In 2007, Laboratory Theater helped Dixon Place initiate and establish its on-going artist residency program. In addition to his work with Laboratory Theater, Greenberg has directed Una Corda, a solo performance ritual written & performed by Austin-based artist kt shorb, (premiered September 2010 at Blue Theater in Austin, Texas) and Murphy, an experimental music-theater piece by composer
Corey Dargel and playwright Honor Molloy, (awarded the
New Dramatists' 2007
Frederick Loewe Award in Musical Theater). Greenberg has choreographed two other pieces by Dargel, Thirteen Near-Death Experiences (PS 122, 2009) and Removable Parts (HERE, 2008), directed by
Emma Griffin. He collaborated with composer Eve Beglarian on The Sirens, or Pleasure as part of her RiverProject at Abrons Art Center in January 2012.
Genet Porno is the second piece in a trilogy of works
Yvan Greenberg is creating with Laboratory Theater, based on influential 20th century gay authors/novels:
William S. Burroughs,
Jean Genet and
Andy Warhol. The first work in the series, Git Along Lil Doggies, based primarily on Burroughs' novel The Place of Dead Roads and exploring the idea of the cowboy outlaw, as a metaphor for queerness and being a gay artist, played at The Brick in New York in 2010.
The OBIE-winning HERE (
Kristin Marting, Artistic Director and
Kim Whitener, Producing Director), founded in 1993, is a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performance viewed as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines-theater, dance, music and opera, puppetry, media, visual and installation, spoken word and performance art. Standout productions include
Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues,
Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique and Arias with a Twist,
Hazelle Goodman's On Edge,
Trey Lyford &
Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers,
Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven,
Corey Dargel's Removable Parts, Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge and Yoav Gal's Mosheh, among many others. In 2008, following an extensive renovation, HERE re-opened the doors to its longtime downtown home for the arts, where it continues as a vibrant, welcoming haven for artists and audiences alike. In addition to commissioning, developing and producing innovative new work from artists in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), through its SubletSeries, HERE proudly hosts adventurous artists, companies and productions - whether emerging or acclaimed - from New York and around the globe.
The HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) has been HERE's signature development and producing program since 1998. HARP commissions, develops and premieres new hybrid performances. Productions developed at HERE challenge existing boundaries between disciplines -- theater, dance, music, opera, puppetry, media, visual arts, installation, spoken word and more. Through HARP, the Resident Artists are given the unique opportunity to develop their projects for up to three years through free works-in-progress showings, workshop presentations in HERE's annual CULTUREMART festival, culminating in full-scale productions.
Each season, HERE premieres several of these Resident Artist productions as mainstage works. These innovative projects are grown in a diverse artistic community where artists receive career development resources and hands-on training. HARP has been widely recognized as a unique model for artistic development for the field to emulate. In honoring HERE with the 2009 Ross Wetzsteon Award, the OBIE Committee noted, "it's become increasingly hard for artists to find a place to take risks, a safe haven where they can develop daring new work. One theater has regularly bucked the trend, making its mission to ensure that artists have a home for their research and development, and that theatregoers can sample the exciting results."
HERE is also home to the cross-disciplinary productions of Artistic Director
Kristin Marting; the Dream Music Puppetry Program (Artistic Director,
Basil Twist; Producing Director, Barbara Busackino); and the acclaimed opera-theatre and music-theatre festival PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now, co-produced with
Beth Morrison Projects.
Genet Porno plays September 9 - 26 as follows: Wednesday through Saturday at 7:00pm. Performance running time: 80 minutes. Tickets are $20.00. Tickets can be purchased at www.here.org or by calling (212) 352-3101 or at the HERE Box Office (5PM until curtain on show days). For more, please visit www.here.org.
Genet Porno will be followed in HERE's season by the Resident Artist productions Chang(e) by
Soomi Kim (November 4 - 22) and Science Fair by Hai-Ting Chinn (April 13 - 24), and the Artistic Director production Idiot by
Kristin Marting and
Robert Lyons (April 27 - May 21). HERE's 2015-2016 Season also includes the fourth annual PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now festival, and HERE's yearly CULTUREMART festival, giving audiences a first look at new work in process from artists in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP).
