The Brick to Present MONEY LAB Workshop, 8/7-10

Money Lab is an economic vaudeville, a multi-disciplinary experiment to discover whether economic ideas can be represented through performance. It uses a mixture of theater, dance, video, music, clowning and games in order to explore everything from the darker predictions of Malthus, to the 2008 stock market collapse, to the economic cost of being an artist. Developed with the help of a crew of artists and economists, this project will culminate with a four-day performance workshop at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.

The workshop runs Wednesday, August 7 - Saturday, August 10 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15, plus a required $5 buy in. To reserve, call 212-352-3101 or visit www.bricktheater.com.

Among the elements presented during the evening will be audience participatory games based on economic behavioral experiments, including auctions, The Dictator Game, and The Ultimatum Game, developed with the help of Game Play curator Gyda Arber and economist Rosemarie Nagel; a dance/video piece entitled DEAD CAT BOUNCE examining economic jargon during the 2008 crisis, choreographed by Patrice Miller and video designed by Daniel McKleinfled; Ian W. Hill's new found text piece, TO RECEIVE A MARK, based on the writings of Malthus and others; and two short sketches, THE DITCH DIGGER, by John Maynard Keynes and THE MONEY ATHEIST, both written by Edward Einhorn and directed by Eric Oleson. Upon entering, audience members will be required to purchase five dollars worth of tokens that they will used in the games during the evening. Red and blue tokens will representing the conflicting economies of food vs. flowers, aka basic needs vs. beauty/art. The results of the games will change the value of the tokens during the course of the evening, and the fluctuating exchange rates will be posted throughout. One central question of the evening is: how do we value art, and can it be measured on an economic scale?

UNTITLED THEATER COMPANY #61 is a Theater of Ideas: scientific, political, philosophical, and above all theatrical. UTC61 previous productions and events have included The Václav Havel Festival; the NEUROfest (plays about neurology); the Off-Broadway production of FAIRY TALES OF THE ABSURD; THE VELVET ORATORIO, which premiered at the Walter Bruno Theater at Lincoln Center; THE PIG, or Václav Havel's HUNT FOR A PIG, which was part of the Ohio Theater's Ice Factory at 3LD; adaptations of the science fiction novels DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?, THE LATHE OF HEAVEN, and CAT'S CRADLE, at 3LD and Walkerspace; and, most recently, an adaptation of IPHIGENIA IS AULIS, which played at La MaMa.

The Brick is located at 575 Metropolitan Avenue (between Union Avenue and Lorimer Street) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on the L & G subway lines (L: Lorimer stop; G: Metropolitan stop). For more detailed directions & further information, visit www.bricktheater.com. The Brick and its non-profit company, The Brick Theater, Inc. were founded in September of 2002 by Robert Honeywell and Michael Gardner. Formerly an auto-body shop, a storage space and a yoga center, this brick- walled garage was completely refurbished into a state-of-the-art theater complex, with a large sprung floor and professional lighting and sound package. Winner of THE 2009 CAFFE CINO FELLOWSHIP AWARD, The Brick is Williamsburg, Brooklyn's destination for cutting-edge theatrical experience.

Home to the critically acclaimed premieres of Bouffon Glass Menajoree (NY IT Award Winner-Outstanding Play), Samuel & Alasdair: A Personal History of the Robot War (NY IT Award Winner-Outstanding Play), Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury (NY IT Award Nominee-Outstanding Performance Art Production), Greed: A Musical Love $tory (NY IT Award Nominee-Outstanding Musical), Red Cloud Rising, Theatre of the Arcade and Suspicious Package (NY IT Award Nominee-Outstanding Play), The Brick has hosted some of downtown theater's most innovative artists, including Annie Baker, Young Jean Lee, The Debate Society, Banana Bag & Bodice, Thomas Bradshaw, and Jollyship the Whiz-Bang's Nick Jones. The Brick has also hosted The Iranian Theater Festival, The Comic Book Theater Festival, Fight Fest, Game Play: A Celebration of Video Game Theater, five years of the international NY Clown Theatre Festival, Gemini CollisionWorks' August repertory festival (The Collisionworks), The Too Soon Festival, The Antidepressant Festival, You're Welcome, Adventure Quest, The Nosemaker's Apprentice, The Protestants, The Granduncle Quadrilogy, Lord Oxford Presents the Second American Revolution, Live!, Third Lows' 2-year Penny Dreadful serial, Richard Foreman's Harry in Love, The Film Festival: A Theater Festival, Babylon Babylon, Notes from Underground, Bitch Macbeth, A Thought about Raya, World Gone Wrong, The Pretentious Festival (including Every Play Ever Written and Macbeth without Words), Strom Thurmond Is Not a Racist/Cleansed, The Death of Griffin Hunter, Untitled Theater Co. #61's Havel Festival, Sexadelic Cemetery, The Kung Fu Importance of Being Earnest, The $ellout Festival, Adventures of Caveman Robot, The Baby Jesus One-Act Jubilee, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, The Moral Values Festival, World Gone Wrong, Tupperware Orgy, Bizarre Science Fantasy, Who Is Wilford Brimley? The Musical, Jenna is nuts, Habitat, In a Strange Room (based on William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying), Assurbanipal Babilla's Assyrian Monkey Fantasy and Stanislaw Witkiewicz's The Pragmatists.