The Charlestown Working Theater Presents An Exciting Event In Conjunction With Moondog Madrigal

The Charlestown Working Theater will present the art and music collaborative An Exciting Event February 19th and 20th as they present their current work Moondog Madrigal. The musicians/puppeteers of An Exciting Event interweave the late Louis "Moondog" Hardin's catchy and complex madrigal rounds with their own dazzling menagerie of musical instruments, rhyming couplets, and rowdy crew of recycled-garbage puppets to tell a story of love, education, and a Giant Earthworm.

The premiere performance of this full-length work occurred in May 2009 at the San Francisco Community Music Center. A performance of the Moondog Madrigal Mini-Puppet Show Teaser was presented at the NYC Moondog Rising Festival in November 2007.An Exciting EventAn Exciting Event is a band of composer-performers who come together from across the United States to create, explore and celebrate music and puppetry, employing overlooked materials such as glass bottles, plastic milk jugs, and yard waste; vintage forms such as rounds, iambic couplets, themes and variations; and unconventional systems of tuning, rhythm and communication.

Learn more about this group and their projects at www.anexcitingevent.orgMoondogAmerican composer, musician, poet, and instrument inventor Moondog was born Louis Hardin in Marysville, Kansas, in 1916. Blind from age 16, he lived for about twenty years (between the late 1940's and mid 1970's) on the streets of Manhattan, dressed in Viking garb and known as "The Viking of 6th Avenue."

He composed his upbeat, melodic, contrapuntal, and rhythmically intricate music in Braille, and recorded a series of albums during the 1950's and 1960's for the Prestige and Columbia record labels. His sold and performed his music in the street, along with his whimsical, philosophical rhymed couplets. He lived the last 25 years of his life in Germany, where he wrote and recorded a vast amount of music, much of which still has yet to be transcribed from Braille. He died in 1999.

Charlestown Working Theater

CWT's Resident and Visiting Artists Program, established in 1997 to create the opportunity and environment for area theatre artists to develop, rehearse, and perform creative theatre productions, has grown to full capacity. Today CWT hosts the work of local, national, and International Artists, including nationally recognized companies such as Mabou Mines (NY) and Great Small Works (NY), leading regional companies including Double Edge Theatre and Beau Jest Moving Theatre, and international companies such as Berlin's Theatre Kranevit, Zuppa Circus from Nova Scotia, and Argentina's Jicara Teatro.

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