Symphony Space to Present Elevator Repair Service's World Premiere of ULYSSES

Symphony Space, which celebrates James Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses in its beloved annual Bloomsday on Broadway, marks the milestone occasion of the book's 100th anniversary with a new commission in which Elevator Repair Service (ERS) brings the novel to wild, illuminating theatrical life. Directed by John Collins, this world premiere event takes the stage of Symphony Space's Peter Jay Sharp theater on Thursday, June 16 at 8 pm.

Ulysses, Joyce's complex, maddening, and epic novel chronicling a single day in turn-of-the-century Dublin, has famously perplexed scholars and readers alike for a century. It is a fitting next challenge for the experimental theater company that has based past works on Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises-with highly acclaimed results. The New York Times has called ERS "one of New York City's few truly essential theater companies," described them as "a heroic company that dares to venture into literary realms where theater artists are known to sink and drown," and written, "count me in if Elevator Repair Service decides to take on the phone book as its next project."

At Symphony Space, a cast of seven ERS ensemble members-Dee Beasnael, Kate Benson, Maggie Hoffman, Vin Knight, Scott Shepherd, Christopher-Rashee Stevenson, and Stephanie Weeks-will perform a curated selection from each of the novel's 18 episodes, in under two hours, with a mad dash of activity, speeding voices, and a full embrace of the text's iconic mash-up of styles. Using the simple format of an academic panel discussion-turned-wild theatrical embodiment, the piece will reverberate with both the literary achievement of the novel and its notorious chaos, debauchery, and revelry.

Ulysses is directed by ERS Artistic Director John Collins, with scenic design by dots, costume design by Enver Chakartash, lighting design by Mark Barton, sound design by Ben Williams, and props design by Patricia Marjorie.

Tickets and Address

Tickets are $28 for non-members, $23 for members, and $17 for those 30 and under, and can be purchased at symphony space.org.

Symphony Space is located at 2537 Broadway (corner of 95th Street), New York, NY 10025.

COVID-19 Safety Policy

The health and safety of all are Symphony Space's top priorities. Symphony Space requires that all staff, artists, and patrons be fully vaccinated, and that everyone (except performers on stage) wear masks while in the building. For information on the institution's current COVID-19 safety policy, please visit https://www.symphonyspace.org/your-visit/what-you-need-to-know.

About the Cast

Dee Beasnael is an award-winning actor whose theater credits include The Securely Conferred, Vouchsafed Keepsakes of Maery S. (Abrons Art Center); Silence and Fear (touring French production), All Over Everywhere (The Kitchen/MITU), In the Solitude of The Cotton Fields (NYU Skirball Center/Brooklyn Museum), 12 shouts to the 10 Forgotten Heavens (Whitney Museum of American Art), and Police and Thieves (The Performing Garage). Her voiceover credits include Caillou (French/Canadian Distribution), Sorghum and Spear (PepSqually Productions), Opal Watson Private Eye, (Pinna Originals), and Kyle's World, (Pinna Originals).

Kate Benson is a writer and actor living in Brooklyn. Performances include Variations on the Main (Jack), Raw Bacon from Poland (Abrons Arts Center), I'll Never Love Again (Bushwick Starr), Tiger, Tiger (on the Nature of Violence) (Dixon Place), Fondly, Collette Richland (Elevator Repair Service at New York Theatre Workshop), Running Away from the One with the Knife (The Chocolate Factory), Nomads (the Incubator), and Good Person of Szechwan (The Public & LaMama). Her plays include [PORTO], produced by the Bushwick Starr and WP Theater; A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes (Obie winner), produced by New Georges with the WP Theater; Where Are We Going?; Super Magic Wild Forest; and the Assembly's I Will Look Forward to This Later (co-writer, with Emily Perkins-Margolin). She is a graduate of the Brooklyn College MFA Playwriting program.

Maggie Hoffman is a founder of the avant-punk performance ensemble Radiohole, and the artist-run venue The Collapsable Hole in NYC. She has performed in six ERS productions, and will be appearing in ERS's upcoming show Seagull, premiering at NYU Skirball Center in July 2022.

Vin Knight. With ERS: Everyone's Fine with Virginia Woolf; Measure for Measure; Fondly, Collette Richland; Shuffle; The Select (The Sun Also Rises); The Sound and the Fury; No Great Society and Gatz. Other stage credits include The Music Man (Sharon Playhouse), Spam (JACK), Our Man in Havana (Portland Stage), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2013 Broadway revival), Marie Antoinette (ART and Yale Rep), The Temperamentals (Barrow Group) and U.S. Drag (Clubbed Thumb). Film and TV credits include "Inventing Anna," "Search Party," "Orange Is the New Black," "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," "Succession," "Bull," "The Blacklist" and "Homeland." He is a graduate of Yale University.

Scott Shepherd. In Scott Shepherd's first ERS show, McGurk: A Cautionary Tale (1994), he slept on a radiator for 20 minutes. In Total Fictional Lie, he wore a fake mustache as eyebrows and ate lit matches. In Gatz, he read a novel out loud. Other ERS shows include Measure for Measure, No Great Society, Cab Legs, and Shut Up I Tell You. He has worked with The Wooster Group since 1997, playing Hamlet in Hamlet and other roles in The Town Hall Affair; Vieux Carré; Poor Theater; To You, The Birdie (Phèdre); and Brace Up!, among others. He has two Obie Awards, for Gatz and Poor Theater. His screen appearances include First Cow, El Camino, Bluff City Law, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, True Detective, Wormwood, The Young Pope, Jason Bourne, and Bridge of Spies.

Christopher-Rashee Stevenson is a theater artist from Baltimore, Maryland. He has been a SUITE/SPACE ('20-'21) artist at Mabou Mines and is an alum of Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab '18. His work as director and performer has been featured at The Performing Garage, The Tank, JACK, HERE Arts Center, The Actor's Studio, American Repertory Theater, Millennium Film Workshop, Lincoln Center Education, LaMaMa, and the Eubie Blake Jazz Institute.

Stephanie Weeks is an award-winning actor and director. She has performed at renowned theaters including Lincoln Center, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, La Jolla Playhouse among others. With Target Margin Theater she was awarded for her years of dedication, the OBIE for Recognition of Artistic Achievement and Commitment to Excellence in Theater as an Associate Artist. Stephanie also starred in the Melvin Van Peebles film Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted-Mutha, which was an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival. Weeks' television credits include Tales of The City, starring Laura Linney, on Netflix; The Good Fight (CBS; and Law and Order (NBC). In her directing work, she just recently directed A Boy and His Soul by Colman Domingo at the Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca and Eclipsed by Danai Gurira at University of Utah, awarded Outstanding Performance and Production Ensemble by the Kennedy Center (Festivention Series). Other productions include "After Midnight" for the Target Margin Yiddish Theater Lab and Machinal by Sophie Treadwell at New York University to name a few. She holds an MFA from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and has a certificate of study from London Academy of Music and Drama.

About Elevator Repair Service

Elevator Repair Service (ERS) is a New York City-based company that creates original works for live theater with an ongoing ensemble. The company's shows are created from a wide range of texts that include found transcripts of trials and debates, literature, classical dramas, and new plays. Founded in 1991, ERS has authored an extensive body of work that includes upwards of 20 original theatrical productions. These have earned the company a loyal following and made it one of New York's most highly acclaimed experimental theater companies. Gatz (a production of the entire text of The Great Gatsby), along with The Sound and the Fury (from Faulkner's novel) and The Select (an adaptation of The Sun Also Rises) are among the company's best known works. The company's body of work also includes new works by playwrights Kate Scelsa and Sibyl Kempson as well as works by Shakespeare and Chekhov. ERS productions share a commitment to risk-taking and reinvention, blending unusual texts with innovations in theatrical form. They feature the company's signature dynamic performance style coupled with a rigorous commitment to psychologically complex performances. ERS has received numerous awards and distinctions.

About Symphony Space

Symphony Space is a multi-disciplinary performing arts center where bold programming, presented in a uniquely warm and welcoming environment, forges indelible relationships between artists and audiences.

Symphony Space's fundamental mission is to connect art, ideas, and community through their performances and their commitment to literacy and education through the arts. Known for an array of ground-breaking programs, including Selected Shorts, their immersive Wall to Wall concerts, and their innovative Global Arts education initiative, Symphony Space presents a full slate of original, affordable (and free) programming within New York City and in communities throughout the country through tours, public radio broadcasts, podcasts, and virtual events. On their stages and in the classrooms they serve, Symphony Space fosters access to the arts through all the disciplines.

Symphony Space was founded in the belief that the arts bring people together, transcend barriers, and celebrate both our similarities and differences. Through adventurous and impactful performances, commissions, and conversations, Symphony Space continues to invigorate these guiding principles, harnessing the power of the arts to engage, inspire, and build community.

Symphony Space is located at 2537 Broadway at 95th Street.

Bloomsday on Broadway with Elevator Repair Service is made possible by support from the Isaiah Sheffer Fund for New Initiatives. Irish Arts Center is providing promotional support.