Target Margin Theater Reveals 2023-2024 Season - THE HIDDEN SECRET

Target Margin Theater has announced details for The Hidden Secret, the Obie award-winning company's 2023-2024 season. Is there a secret that makes the world run? Is there meaning encoded in random accidents? Is there a figure hidden in the carpet? These are just a few of the animating questions that Target Margin Theater will delve into as they explore the mysteries and secrets all around us, unlocking questions that pulse beneath the surface.

 

The season will be anchored by Remember This Trick, a new exploration of troubling conspiracy theories, strong survival, the enduring story of American antisemitism, and the trickster spirit that will save us all. Created and directed by Founding Artistic Director David Herskovits, this new play weaves together stories of Jewish survival amidst the fog of conspiracy thinking in America that has descended on our time. From the beginning, humanity has needed stories to help us understand our world, especially the horrors. Today the cloud of conspiracy theories has never been thicker and darker. Running February 17 – March 17, 2024, with an opening set for Monday February 26, 2024, Remember This Trick pierces the fog of all these stories – true, imagined, and fake.

 

“Remember This Trick is an expression of personal history – one that I hope is meaningful to everyone,” says Herskovits. “My father escaped Slovakia in 1940 with his mother and grandmother when he was ten. No one else in the family got out. His story is one of thousands of inspiring stories of Jewish survival and strength in adversity. With Remember This Trick, I want to add my own voice to that literature, without sentimentality and with the richest complexity I can bring to bear.”

 

Herskovits began work on Remember This Trick in 2022. Although the play deals with antisemitism, it is centered on the situation in America. Today, we must acknowledge the context of events in Israel/Palestine, the suffering and horror of that conflict. Despite the overlap of some subject material, Remember This Trick intentionally does not attempt to address the current and historical situation in the state of Israel. That is a tragedy that commands its own focus and deep conversation in the world and in the arts.

 

Target Margin is also pleased to announce the return of the TMT Institute, a year-long fellowship that gathers a small cohort of artists who seek to radically disrupt and re-examine their practice. It is a place where artists can challenge and question themselves, try new directions in any way at all, without any expectation of result or success. The 2023-2024 TMT Institute fellows are playwright Ben Gassman, set designer Cate McCrea, choreographer Marie Lloyd Paspe, actor Maleek Rae, and performance artist Sylvain Souklaye.

Throughout the year, Target Margin continues to lift up rising artists, local artists, and established artists. As part of that work, Target Margin artists will work with local students again to create an original theatrical work. Created in collaboration with The Center for Family Life and PS01, The Mysteries of Sunset Park will find 3rd through 5th graders presenting an exploration of their own neighborhood, performed at The Doxsee Theater on December 2. Local English-language learners are also developing their own theatrical stories with Target Margin. Through the day on December 9, in partnership with local partners Raising Health, we will offer a toy drive, provide health screenings, share ESL student stories, and celebrate the holidays.”

 

Through TMT Hosts, Target Margin will invite artists who share its spirit to the Doxsee Theater. The 2023-2024 season includes Backchannel a new work from composer John Morton and choreographer David Appel, in November; the return of the Exponential Festival with Banana Bag and Bodice in January 2024; and in March 2024 The Lydian Gale Parr with music composed by Alaina Ferris and libretto by Karinne Keithley Syers and other mysterious gems to be announced soon.

Please visit www.targetmargin.org for more information on the 2023-2024 season.

 

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