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Woodshed Collective Presents EMPIRE TRAVEL AGENCY, Beg. Today

By: Sep. 09, 2014
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Empire Travel Agency (ETA) is a show comprised of performance events ("trips") presented at multiple locations across the city. Featuring a cast of over 20 of New York's brightest performers and musicians, it's designed to allow New Yorkers to experience the city anew by re-imagining diverse pieces of architecture as settings for a series of unexpected happenings. From the Bethesda fountain to the L train, from the Bowery to your bathroom, ETA allows you to travel out of the mundane and into the inspired.

Audience members' experiences will begin by visiting empiretravelagency.com where they'll find a phone number for a "hotline." Upon calling this phone, they'll speak with one of our "travel agents," and the good folks at Empire Travel will ascertain the perfect trip for that particular person. Our agent will then direct him or her to the location of a pay phone somewhere around the city. When the audience member arrives at that pay phone at the appointed time, they'll receive a call, and their journey will begin.

  • A black Mercedes may roll up and take you into the night and on a journey through a nostalgic and mysterious tour of industrial Brooklyn.
  • You may find a map directing you to a gazebo in Central Park where a spontaneous orchestra explodes around you.
  • A world of performers may collide around you on the F Train beckoning you to Coney Island for a dip in the sea.

You tell us your preferences, and we select a trip for you. And best of all, they're free of charge. New York is way too expensive and you deserve to get away without leaving.

Empire Travel Agency is directed by Teddy Bergman and Mikhael Tara Garver. Design is by Gabriel Evansohn, Carl Faber, Will Pickens, Katie Fleming, Becky Lasky, and Tricia Barsamian. Original text written by Jaclyn Backhaus, Paul Cohen, Jenny Connell Davis, Andrew Gerle, Libby Leonard, Kyra Miller, Jason Gray Platt, Lynne Rosenberg, Stephen Squibb, and Shontina Vernon. Associate Direction is by Andrew Neisler, Katie Fleming, Jeremiah Matthew Davis, Jason Gray Platt, Kyra Miller, Andrew Gerle, and Kelly Barnik.

Based in New York City, Woodshed Collective presents immersive, installation, and site-specific theater free of charge. Founded at Vassar College in 2002 by a diverse group of artists working to collectively engage audiences with visceral theatrical experiences, Woodshed creates financially accessible immersive theater. Audiences explore handcrafted worlds in diverse locations intended to "athleticize" their senses, emotions, and minds. Notable productions include: Caridad Svich's Twelve Ophelias presented in McCarren Park Pool, Paul Cohen's The Confidence Man, (on a decommissioned steamship in the Hudson River) inspired by Melville's novel and Roland Topor's The Tenant (as a fully realized apartment building in five story 19th Century Parish House on the Upper West Side) by Steven Levenson, Tommy Smith, Dylan Dawson, Sarah Burgess, Paul Cohen, and Bekah Brunstetter. Recently, Woodshed has expanded its ranks to include artists behind such shows as: Queen of the Night, ICA's The Experiment, AMC's "Televison Upfronts," and Fornicated.

Woodshed Collective is comprised of: Teddy Bergman, Jeremiah Matthew Davis, Gabriel Hainer Evansohn, Carl Faber, Emily Fishbaine, Katie Fleming, Mikhael Tara Garver, Jocelyn Kuritsky, Kyra Miller, Jason Gray Platt, Will Pickens, and Stephen Squibb. The company is led by: Teddy Bergman, Artistic Director, Mikhael Tara Garver, Managing Artistic Director, Gabriel Hainer Evansohn, Director of Production.







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