A.R.T. Announces Additions and Updated Info for Emerging America Fest

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), Huntington Theatre Company, and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston announce additional events and offerings as part of the Emerging America Festival, as well as updated information on the festival weekend. The three organizations have joined forces for the second annual Emerging America - a festival featuring groundbreaking performance by American artists.

Emerging America spans Boston and Cambridge with events taking place at all three artistic homes throughout the three days: the A.R.T. at OBERON, 2 Arrow St. Cambridge MA; the Huntington's Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont Street, Boston; and the ICA at 100 Northern Avenue, Boston.

From May 13 through 15, Emerging America brings together some of the country's most promising performers, writers, companies, and directors for a weekend filled with energy, imagination, creativity, and drama.

Tickets are on sale now. Prices range from $5 to $25, and packages are available for special discounts and experiences across all 3 institutions. For more details and for tickets visit www.emergingamericafestival.org.

May 1st beginning at 2:30:
THE EMERGING AMERICA FESTIVAL STAGE AT HARVARD SQUARE'S MAYFAIR
The May Day Performance Challenge:
Six groups perform pieces incorporating a script they have developed, a genre they have been assigned, and items found from a scavenger hunt they have just completed in the previous three hours. Celebrity judges and the audience will choose the winning group.

Other Performances:
4pm: Beyond the 4th Wall performs selections from the musical AIDA
4:30pm: Friends of Gertrude performs fresh and fearless improv and sketch comedy
5pm: Hopelandic Theatre Company performs selections from their dance/theater piece DANCING BEHIND MY EYELIDS

Launching May 1st:
THE GREAT EMERGING AMERICA PHOTO HUNT
A festival-long photo scavenger hunt for prizes. More information at www.emergingamericafestival.org.

Available now and running throughout the festival weekend:
THE EMERGING AMERICA AUDIO PLAYS, PODCASTS, AND WALKING TOURS
Following 2010's creation of 23 audio events, this year's festival offers a new batch of dynamic free downloads. The Huntington Theatre Company shares 11 site-specific audio plays written by playwrights from the Huntington Playwriting Fellows program and inspired by locations surrounding each partner institution. The A.R.T. and ICA offers podcasts and walking tours from local artists and festival participants such as Mikhael Garver and Hortense Gerardo. Listen in and explore, investigate, and imagine the life of places in Boston and Cambridge. www.emergingamericafestival.org.
For more information about Emerging America, visit www.emergingamericafestival.org

Emerging America also includes the following previously announced events:

During the festival:
THE FESTIVAL TENT
Come together at the Festival Tent, just outside OBERON at the A.R.T., where festival-goers can grab a drink and meet artists and audiences from all over Cambridge, Boston, and the nation.

The festival weekend events will include:
BELLONA, DESTROYER OF CITIES Adapted and directed by Jay Scheib after Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren
May 13 at 7:30pm, May 14 at 7:30pm and May 15 at 2pm
- The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston
Jay Scheib brings the dystopic and violent vision of Samuel Delany's epic sci-fi novel, Dhalgren to the stage. Using smashing choreography and live video action, this sexy cast of characters explores the limits of life at the end of the world. Bellona combines passages from Delany's novel with original material as well as video and photography by director Jay Scheib and artist Carrie Mae Weems.
On Friday, May 13, a Post-show discussion with Artist Carrie Mae Weems, contributing set designer for Bellona, and producer and Bellona actress Tanya Selvaratnem
On Saturday, May 14, a Post-show discussion with Samuel R. Delany

BEOWULF - A THOUSAND YEARS OF BAGGAGE by Banana Bag and Bodice

May 13 at 8pm and May 15 at 6pm - A.R.T.'s OBERON

This SongPlay adaptation of the Old English epic poem Beowulf harkens back to the raw and rowdy storytelling of the Scandinavian mead halls. The show features a 7-piece band including dueling trombones, bass clarinet, accordion and saw, combining Weillian cabaret, 40's jazz harmony, indie rock, punk, electronica, and Romantic Lieder into a cacophonous swirl.

PSYCHED by Ryan Landry, featuring Larry Coen
May 14 at 1pm and 4pm - Huntington Theatre Company's Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
Everybody wanted to talk to the mysterious old lady in Alfred Hitchcock's slasher masterpiece Psycho. Now, after the bloodbath, Mrs. Bates pulls back the curtain and tells HER side! Larry Coen stars in Ryan Landry's twisted take on Hitchcock's masterpiece. WARNING: NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH!

THE UN-OFFICIAL GUIDE TO AUDIENCE WATCHING PERFORMANCE by Raphael Xavier
May 14 and May 15 at 2pm - A.R.T.'s OBERON
Xavier shifts the rhythms of rap and propels narratives through break dancing to draw parallels between the performer's body, which is inscribed by life's experiences, and the stage itself, putting the audience in one of his shoes laced with stand-up to boot.

GRAND THEFT OVID by Eddie Kim
May 14 at 4pm - A.R.T.'s OBERON
Characters from the video games World of Warcraft, Halo Reach, and Grand Theft Auto 4 perform tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Middle and high school students turn into digital "puppeteers" when they operate projected images of their favorite games. This production combines ancient text with modern technology to create an original theatrical experience.

CITY COUNCIL MEETING by Aaron Landsman
May 14 at 6pm and May 15 at 4pm - A.R.T.'s OBERON
Borrowing tales from half-a-dozen cities where Aaron Landsman sat in on government meetings, as well as improvised testimony from you the viewer, this piece imagines public discourse as art and vice versa. Come early and you could end up as the Mayor of this night. Come late and you may lose your voice.

FORNICATED FROM THE BEATLES Created by Mikhael Tara Garver
Featuring The New Ensemble & favorite Boston band The Everyday Visuals
May 14 at 8pm - A.R.T.'s OBERON
A love song to American pop, a performance of simultaneous surround-sound stories, a rousing dance party, and a look into the lives of 10 music fans -- all from the generation after the generation that fell into bed to the songs of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, a generation searching for its own undeniable song. As the band sets up, you receive personal texts that grant you backstage access to each character's private revelations and you follow a series of live scenes. But with the first strum of the guitar, you, the fans, and the band come together.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION! BRUNCH
May 15 at 12pm - Huntington Theatre Company's Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
Enjoy live music and mingle with other festival-goers to talk about the weekend's adventures and experiences. Exciting performers to be announced.

THE MOMENTUM by Collaboration Town
May 15 at 2pm - Huntington Theatre Company's Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
Unhappy? Listless? Broke? Alone? Let the Laws of Attraction massage your vibrations and change your life in the self-help-sploitation THE MOMENTUM. Remember: It's not self-help if you don't help self.

FESTIVAL CLOSING PARTY featuring THE LISPS
May 15 at 8 p.m. - A.R.T.'s OBERON
The closing party features The Lisps and delightful surprises cooked up by OBERON and its eclectic artists. The Lisps are a New York-based band whose songs borrow liberally from vaudeville, science fiction, and Americana. Their hyperactive performances typically involve bloody tambourines, wrestling, lipstick smeared melodicas, old filing cabinets, and film reels suspended by rusty chains.

ABOUT THE American Repertory THEATER (A.R.T.):
The A.R.T. is one of the country's most celebrated resident theaters and the winner of numerous awards including the Tony Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and regional Elliot Norton and I.R.N.E. Awards. In 2002 the A.R.T. was the recipient of The National Theatre Conference's Outstanding Achievement Award, and in May of 2003 it was named one of the top three regional theaters in the country by Time magazine. Founded by Robert Brustein in 1980, the A.R.T. during its 30-year history has welcomed many major American and international theater artists, presenting a diverse repertoire that includes new American plays, bold reinterpretations of classical texts, and provocative new music Theater Productions. The A.R.T. has performed throughout the U.S. and worldwide in 21 cities in 16 countries on 4 continents. It has presented over 200 productions, over half of which were premieres of new plays, translations, and adaptations. In 2009, the A.R.T. welcomed its new Artistic Director, Diane Paulus. Armed with the A.R.T.'s mission to expand the boundaries of theater, Paulus and her team have engaged thousands of new theatergoers at performances of Sleep No More, The Donkey Show, Gatz, Best of Both Worlds, Johnny Baseball, and Cabaret as well as festivals like Emerging America. Critics and audiences have embraced the immersive environments that have become hallmarks of A.R.T. productions. The Theater has broadened its focus to include the audience's total experience, providing them with a sense of ownership in the theatrical event. Initiatives like the A.R.T.'s new club theater OBERON, which Paulus calls a "Second Stage for the 21st century," is an example of one initiative that has not only become an incubator for local artists but also has attracted national attention as a groundbreaking model for programming. Through all of its work, the A.R.T. is committed to building a community of artists, designers, technicians, administrators, and audience.

ABOUT Huntington Theatre Company:
The Huntington Theatre Company, in residence at Boston University, is Boston's largest professional theatre company. Under the direction of Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso, the Huntington creates world-class productions with theatre artists from Boston and Broadway and the most promising new talent and has transferred over a dozen of these productions to Broadway. The Huntington also runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, which the Huntington built in 2004. The Calderwood Pavilion, which includes the 370-seat Wimberly Theatre and the 200-seat Roberts Studio Theatre, houses most of the Huntington's new works activities and complements its 890-seat, Broadway-style main stage, the Boston University Theatre. The Huntington provides the first-class facilities and audience services of the Calderwood Pavilion to dozens of organizations each year, including some of Boston's most exciting small and mid-sized theatre companies, at significantly subsidized rates. As a national leader in the development of new plays, the Huntington has produced more than 50 New England, American, or world premieres to date, with two world premieres included in the 2010-11 Season. The Huntington's acclaimed education programs have served hundreds of thousands of middle school and high school students since 1982, and bring theatre to the Deaf and blind communities, the elderly, and other underserved populations in the Greater Boston area. The Huntington was founded in 1982 by Boston University and separately incorporated as an independent non-profit in 1986. Its two prior artistic leaders were Peter Altman, (1982-2000) and Nicholas Martin (2000-2008). For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org.

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON (ICA):
An influential forum for multi-disciplinary arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art has been at the leading edge of art in Boston for 75 years. Like its iconic building on Boston's waterfront, the ICA offers new ways of engaging with the world around us. Its exhibitions and programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA, located at 100 Northern Avenue, is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 am - 5 pm; Thursday and Friday, 10 am - 9 pm; and Saturday and Sunday, 10 am - 5 pm. Admission is $15 adults, $10 seniors and students, and free for members and children 17 and under. ICA Free Admission for Youth is sponsored by State Street Foundation. Free admission on Target Free Thursday Nights, 5 - 9 pm. Free admission for families at ICA Play Dates (2 adults + children 12 and under) on the last Saturday of the month. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our Web site at www.icaboston.org.

For more information, visit www.emergingamericafestival.org

 

To post a comment, you must register and login.