PigPen Theatre Co. to Perform Pair of Shows in Brooklyn

Acclaimed New York band and theatre company, PigPen Theatre Co., have confirmed two shows at Rough Trade in Brooklyn, February 29 and March 14.

Fans can buy tickets now:

February 29

March 14

PigPen Theatre Co. has also been chosen to lend their voices and instrumentation to the upcoming Theatre for a New Audience's production of Shakespeare's Pericles. The play will be directed by Trevor Nunn and features OBIE Award-winner Christian Camargo in the title role. An original score written by Tony-nominated Irish composer Shaun Davey (with whom Trevor Nunn has worked six times, including his film of Twelfth Night) will help tell the story and conveying the mystery and magic of the play's ending. PigPen Theatre Co. will play Mr. Davey's score and performing various roles throughout. Trevor Nunn is a four-time Tony and Olivier Award-winner and former Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, he's "as celebrated for his staging of blockbuster musicals (Cats, Les Miserables) as for his revitalizing of classic texts" (Ben Brantley, The New York Times). Pericles marks the first time not only that Nunn has directed this play, but the first time he has directed Shakespeare with a U.S. company. The production begins previews February 14 and opens February 25 for a scheduled run through March 27 at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn.

Last year, PigPen Theatre Co. released their second album, Whole Sun. The band, seven male 20-somethings (Alex Falberg, Ben Ferguson, Curtis Gillen, Matt Nuernberger, Ryan Melia, Dan Weschler and Arya Shahi) who met in college and began writing together in 2007, function as a tightly knit unit. With a lush array of vocal harmony, at times culminating with all seven singing at once, PigPen Theatre Co. often shifts in scale from the personal to the epic. The band of multi-instrumentalists trades off an eclectic collection of instruments, a banjo for a Telecaster, an accordion for a woodwind, that gives PigPen's story-driven songs their wide-ranging, but always evocative, atmosphere.

The Wall Street Journal recently premiered the audio for the album's second single, "We Won't," and the band also released the hilarious basketball-themed video for the song. Paste magazine premiered the studio performance video for the album's powerful first single, "Weathervane."

While it is unusual for a band that's been together nearly 8 years to only be releasing their sophomore album, that's because this group has been making headway in other arenas, too. In addition to their work as musicians, PigPen Theatre Co. is a fully functioning theatre company. The moniker isn't just for the ironic hipster street cred. They're a real multiple-award-winning theatre company. Their music-driven plays (written, composed, and performed by the band) have played Off-Broadway and to packed houses across the country, earning critical praise from The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Huffington Post, Time Out New York, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and more, winning a myriad of awards for their original music, playwriting, and dynamic as an ensemble. The group's theatrical appetite is healthy, too, with three new plays slated for development over the next three years. In 2012, The New Yorker called them "a perfect combination of original music, stunning shadow puppetry, and vigorous physical comedy. It's like watching child geniuses at play."