Leslie Ayvazian Will Kick Off Pangea Residency In May

Theater artist Leslie Ayvazian will bring her latest experiments in mercurial minimalism to Pangea next month. Starting Tue May 7, and running through Tue July 23, she alternates two of her popular chamber shows – “Porcupine Girl” and “Mention My Beauty” – both of which have developed loyal followings among some of New York's leading Downtown theater artists, even while Ayvazian keeps them studiously off the radar.

Stripped of all production values, Ayvazian's proposition is that her performance experiences are not plays about nothing, but plays performed with nothing.  As she boldly chronicles her coming of age in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the anti-war movement, the women's movement and the sexual revolution (hello!), and the lingering legacies of genocide (hello!), like her family's Armenian nightmare in the early 20th century, Ayvazian, who is the current head of playwriting at Columbia University's Graduate School of the Arts, Ayvazian creates shows that are bounteously spare.

“Porcupine Girl” performs Tuesdays May 7, June 11 and July 9, while “Mention My Beauty” is on Tuesdays May 28, June 25, and July 23, all at 7pm.  Tickets for all dates, which are $20 when purchased in advance, are on sale at www.pangeanyc.com

Jim Nicola, who sponsored workshops of “Mention My Beauty” at New York Theatre Workshop, says, “Leslie Ayvazian is an artist everyone needs to know.”  Austin Pendleton calls “Mention My Beauty” “an absolute original.”  Particia Clarkson says seeing it “will make your life better,” and Richard Greenberg says, “the piece is poignant, hilarious, odd.”

Written in 2020-21, “Porcupine Girl” has been performed in a variety of non-traditional non-theater environments including a curatorial “changeover” space in the Guggenheim Museum's Annex Tower at the invitation of then-director Richard Armstrong (Feb 2023).  Ayvazian says her goal is to tell a story with no production values and next to no artifice.  “How can we make a play happen entirely in the imaginations of the audience?” she asks.  “What if people didn't have to look at the performer?”

“Leslie is an absolute original,” says Stephen Shanaghan, Pangea's entertainment director.  “She's ready to transform our intimate Cabaret Room into something it's never been. And for a change a cross-over show (a specialty of ours) will not be a mess to clean up after.  I don't think Leslie will even need a chair!”

The author of the award-winning play “Nine Armenians,” Leslie's other recent shows include “Out of the City” (2012 to 2016), and “100 Aprils” (2018).  At the Columbia Graduate School of the Arts from 2018 to 2020, she was the curator and moderator of the series “Women in Language.”

A vital incubator for new work crossing boundaries between theatre, music and elsewhere, Pangea earned the prestigious Village Award, presented by Village Preservation, in June 2021. According to Elisabeth Vincentelli of The NY Times the club “has vaulted to the forefront of the alt-cabaret scene!”

The club's deliciously priced Italian-Mediterranean menu is available in both the Front Lounge, which features casual no-cover entertainment, and the 60-seat jewel-box Cabaret Room where, in addition to the cover charge, there is food and beverage minimum of $20 per person. Pangea is located at 178 Second Avenue (between 11th & 12th Streets).  For more info call 212-995-0900

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