Wooster Group to Offer Four-Week Preview of CRY, TROJANS! (Troilus & Cressida), 1/8-2/2

The Wooster Group is currently developing a production of one of William Shakespeare's most enigmatic plays, Troilus and Cressida, translating it into a distinctly American idiom. The Group will present four weeks of preview performances of this new production, CRY, TROJANS! (Troilus & Cressida), from January 8-February 2 at The Performing Garage (33 Wooster Street).

Tickets start at $25 and are available at thewoostergroup.org or by phone at 212.966.3651 (Monday-Friday, 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.). These preview performances are not open for review. The Wooster Group is planning a New York Premiere TBA.

Directed by Elizabeth LeCompte, CRY, TROJANS! features performances by Ari Fliakos, Jennifer Lim, Greg Mehrten, Suzzy Roche, Andrew Schneider, Scott Shepherd, Casey Spooner, Kate Valk, and Gary Wilmes. Set elements, props and costumes: Folkert de Jong. Assistant for Costumes: Enver Chakartash. Sound: Bruce Odland with Bobby McElver and Max Bernstein. Lighting: Jennifer Tipton.Video and projections: Andrew Schneider.Stage Manager: Teresa Hartmann. Production Manager: Emily Rea.

CRY, TROJANS! originated as a coproduction with the Royal Shakespeare Company of Troilus and Cressida at the World Shakespeare Festival in conjunction with the London 2012 Olympics. In that collaboration, the two companies took opposite sides in the Trojan War: the Wooster Group staged the Trojan scenes while the RSC staged the Greek ones. Scenes with both Greeks and Trojans were staged by both, each side developing its own version. The companies worked separately until they met a few weeks before performing the piece to sew its two halves together. The seam was intentionally left rough so that the contrast of artistic approaches remained a foreground feature of the production, accenting the face-off of warring cultures in the play.

Seeking a decidedly American angle from which to encounter the RSC and the language of Shakespeare, the Wooster Group turned to the powerfully suggestive and contradictory figure of the American "Indian." Drawing imagery, speech cadences, and movement from many sources including Zacharias Kunuk's Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner and Chris Eyres' Smoke Signals, the Group reimagined the Trojans as a pastiche fictional tribe of early Americans struggling to assert its dignity as doom closes in.

Following the special engagement with the RSC, the Wooster Group returned to New York and converted the collaboration into an independent piece. The spirit of the absent collaborator/enemy still manifests in various ways, but CRY, TROJANS! concentrates on the Trojan side of the story: the corruption of sincere love and the downfall of a noble hero.

Founded in 1975, The Wooster Group has made more than 30 works for theater, dance, film and video under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte. These works include RUMSTICK ROAD (1977), L.S.D. (...JUST THE HIGH POINTS...) (1984), FRANK DELL'S THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTONY(1988), BRACE UP! (1991), THE EMPEROR JONES (1993), HOUSE/LIGHTS (1999), TO YOU, THE BIRDIE! (Phèdre) (2002), HAMLET(2007), THERE IS STILL TIME. .BROTHER (2007), LA DIDONE (2009), and VIEUX CARRÉ (2011). Historical and contemporary arts exert a strong influence on the Group's work, and dance, video, music, and architecture are all important organizing principles. Based at The Performing Garage at 33 Wooster Street in lower Manhattan, the company regularly tours worldwide, including North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. The Performing Garage is part of the Grand Street Artists Co-op, a 1960s project of the Fluxus art movement.

The original Wooster Group/Royal Shakespeare Company co-production was commissioned for the World Shakespeare Festival produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company for the London 2012 Festival.