The Joyce Theater Foundation will present the NYC premiere of Angel Reapers, a new dance/theater piece with text by Alfred Uhry and direction and choreography by Martha Clarke for a two-week limited run from November 29 - December 11. Tickets are $10-$59 ($10 - $44 for Joyce Members) and are available through JoyceCharge at www.Joyce.org or by calling 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street, in Chelsea.
Angel Reapers, a collaboration between Pulitzer, Tony, and Academy Award winning writer
Alfred Uhry and MacArthur "Genius" Award recipient director/choreographer
Martha Clarke, is a multidisciplinary work suggested by the life of
Ann Lee (1736-1784), founder of the Shaker movement. Mother Ann, as she became known, was a visionary, mystic and powerful spiritual leader. Preaching celibacy, she demonstrated that through shaking and trembling movements, sin could be purged from the body. These gesticulating, dancing motions gave the Shaker sect its name. Angel Reapers is not biographical in the usual sense; the staging is more loosely constructed, slipping in and out of reality and embracing Ann's visions and those of her followers. The plot is woven throughout with movement, song and dance to bring to life this extraordinary 18th century woman and the singular world she created. It examines the contradiction between the prim prudery of Shaker tenets and the wild, sexual nature they suppressed.
In Angel Reapers, the dichotomy between the prudish teachings and the hot-as-fire passion of the Shaker community is explored in this uniquecollaboration between two contrasting artists - one whose work is typically rooted in narrative structure, and one who tells stories throughmovement and image-making.
Angel Reapers, a new dance/theater piece by
Martha Clarke and
Alfred Uhry, will run for two weeks at
The Joyce Theater (from November 29 - December 11) as follows: Tuesday - Wednesday at 7:30pm; Thursday - Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 2pm & 8pm; Sunday at 2pm. Tickets range in price from $10-$49 ($26 - $37 for Joyce Members) and are available through JoyceCharge at www.Joyce.org or by calling 212-242-0800. Please note: Tickets prices are subject change. Dance Chat, a free post-performance discussion, will take place on Wednesday, November 30. This free discussion is open to all patrons attending that evening's performance.
The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street, in Chelsea.
Martha Clarke (Director/Choreographer) A founding member of Pilobolus Dance Theatre and Crowsnest,
Martha Clarke has choreographed for Nederlans Dans Theater,
American Ballet Theatre, Rambert Dance Company, and The
Martha Graham Company, among others. As a director Ms. Clarke's many original productions include "Garden of Earthly Delights"; "Vienna: Lusthaus"; "Miracolo d'amore"; "Endangered Species"; "An Uncertain Hour"; "The Hunger Artist"; and "Vers La Flame." She directed the premiere of
Christopher Hampton's "Alice's Adventures Underground" at the
Royal National Theatre in London. In opera, Ms. Clarke has directed "The Magic Flute" for the Glimmerglass Opera and the Canadian Opera Company; "Cosi Fan Tutte" for Glimmerglass;
Tan Dun's "Marco Polo" for the Munich Biennale, the Hong Kong Festival, and the New York City Opera; and Gluck's "Orfeo and Eurydice" for the
English National Opera and New York City Opera. She directed "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for
The American Repertory Theatre and a new music/theatre work, "Belle Epoque," based on the life of Toulouse-Lautrec at Lincoln Center Theatre. "Kaos," an evening of Pirandello's short stories presented at New York Theatre Workshop, was granted the first
Tony Randall Foundation Award in 2006. Ms. Clarke is the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Award in addition to fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation. She has received the Drama Desk Award, two Obie Awards and the LA Critics Award. In 2007, she received an NEA grant to re-envision "Garden of Earthly Delights" under a program dedicated to the remounting of American masterworks. It opened at the American Dance Festival and received an extended commercial run in New York. For "Garden" she received the Joe A. Calloway award for choreography in 2009, and in 2010 the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award. This spring she will premier a new full-evening work at La Scala Opera in Milan, Italy.
Alfred Uhry (Playwright) is distinguished as the only American playwright to have won a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award and two Tony Awards. A graduate o
F Brown University, Uhry began his professional career as a lyric writer under contract to the late
Frank Loesser. In that capacity, he made his Broadway debut in 1968 with Here's Where I Belong. His first major success came when he collaborated with
Robert Waldman on a musical adaptation of
Eudora Welty's The Robber Bridegroom, which opened at the
Mark Taper Forum in 1976 and went on to Broadway, winning Mr. Uhry his first Tony nomination. He followed that with five re-created musicals at the
Goodspeed Opera House. His first play, Driving Miss Daisy opened at
Playwrights Horizons Theatre in New York in 1987. It moved subsequently to the
John Houseman Theatre where it ran for three years and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. The film version, starring
Morgan Freeman and
Jessica Tandy, won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1990. The film also won the Best Picture Award. His next play, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, was commissioned by the Cultural Olympiad for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. It opened on Broadway the next year where it ran for over 500 performances and won Uhry the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama League Award and the 1997 Tony Award for Best Play. His book for the musical, Parade, directed by
Harold Prince with music and lyrics by
Jason Robert Brown, won the Tony Award in 1999. A revised production at the Donmar Theatre in London won Mr. Uhry an Olivier Award Nomination and went on to Los Angeles where it opened to rave reviews in October, 2009. His play, Without Walls, starring
Laurence Fishburne, opened at the
Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in June of 2006. His next play, Edgardo Mine, played the
Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in 2006 and the book for Lovemusik, a musical about
Kurt Weill and
Lotte Lenya ran on Broadway in 2007. It was directed by
Harold Prince. For this, Mr. Uhry won another Drama Desk nomination. He is currently finishing a play commissioned by the Manhattan Theatre Club.
About
The Joyce Theater Foundation
The Joyce Theater Foundation, a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences for three decades. The founders,
Cora Cahan and
Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, which opened as
The Joyce Theater in 1982.
The Joyce Theater is named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther's clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to build the theater. One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance,
The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant home for more than 320 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned more than 130 new dances since 1992. In 1996, The Joyce created Joyce SoHo, a dance center providing highly subsidized rehearsal and performance space to hundreds of dance artists, as well as special residency opportunities for selected choreographers to support the creation of new work. In 2009, The Joyce opened Dance Art New York (DANY) Studios to provide affordable studios for rehearsals, auditions, classes, and workshops for independent choreographers, non-profit dance companies, and the dance/theater communities. New York City public school students and teachers annually benefit from The Joyce's Dance Education Program, and adult audiences get closer to dance through informative Dance Talks, Joyce Pre-Show gatherings, and post-performance Dance Chat discussions.
The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 135,000.
Leadership support for
The Joyce Theater's 2011-2012 season has been received from the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.
Lead support for accessible and inclusive programming provided by MetLife Foundation.
This presentation is funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts. NDP is supported by lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, with additional funding from the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation, and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust.
Additional support for this engagement was provided with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State's 62 counties; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; and with private funds from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Endowment Fund to encourage the performances of out-of-town companies at The Joyce Theater.
Major support for The Joyce has been provided by Alphawood Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, First Republic Bank, The Hearst Foundations, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Open Society Foundations and the Fund for the City of New York, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, and The Shubert Foundation.
