As part of the tenth edition of the COIL festival, Performance Space 122 and New Ohio Theatre present the world premiere of Sorry Robot, the playwriting debut of beloved performer and Bessie-Award-winning composer Mike Iveson, best know for his work with Sibyl Kempson, Elevator Repair Service and choreographer Sarah Michelson. In Sorry Robot, four performers and a piano create a haunting world where robots long to experience the same emotions that their embarrassing, sort-of-pathetic human masters feel. In a hotel that doubles as a software development facility in an ever-dystopian Florida, the machines of the future set out to prove they can do almost anything but shut up.
Iveson has written a farcical new play, studded with nine original compositions, perverse pop songs which provide a window into the hidden hankerings of robots and humans alike, and which just may convert every human in the room into a metallic automaton. Sorry Robot is directed by
Will Davis, produced by
Ariana Smart Truman, scenic and costume design is by Parker Lutz, lighting design is by
Lucrecia Briceno, and production stage management is by Maurina Lioce. The cast includes Anthony
R. Brown, Iveson,
Nicky Paraiso and Tanya Selvaratnam.
No robots were harmed in the making of this piece.
Performances of Sorry Robot will take place tonight, January 6-17 (see schedule above) at New Ohio Theatre. New Ohio Theatre is located at 154 Christopher St, Manhattan. Tickets are available online at
ps122.org and by phone at 212.352.3101.
Mike Iveson is a performer, composer and 2013
Ethyl Eichelberger Award winner. He wrote the music for plays: Dot, by Kate E. Ryan (Clubbed Thumb/Ohio Theatre), Potatoes of August, by Sibyl Kempson (Dixon Place, Red Eye Theater/MN), and You For Me For You, by Mia Chung (Woolly Mammoth), and is currently composing music for Kempson's Fondly, Collette Richland (
Elevator Repair Service) to premiere in 2015. The Kitchen has commissioned a new original play with music from Iveson, The Tear Drinkers, to premiere in 2015. He has also composed music for many of choreographer Sarah Michelson's dances, including commissions for France's Lyon Opera Ballet Love Is Everything and for
Mikhail Baryshnikov & the White Oak Dance Project The Experts, as well as for many Michelson shows including Group Experience (PS122), for which he won a Bessie Award for music composition; Shadowmann (The Kitchen and PS122); Daylight (PS122); and Dogs (BAM). As a performer he has appeared in
Elevator Repair Service's Arguendo, The Select, The Sound and the Fury and Gatz, in a number of Sarah Michelson's dances, as well as shows by Richard Maxwell/New York City Players, Dancenoise,
Charles Atlas,
Aaron Landsman,
Erin Courtney, Yvonne Meier,
Kate Benson, Tom Murrin/Jack Bump,
Mike Taylor, and many others.
