59E59 Theaters Presents 'Made in Poland' Festival

59E59 Theaters (Elysabeth Kleinhans, Artistic Director; Peter Tear, Executive Producer) will welcome MADE IN POLAND: A Festival of New Polish Plays, presented by the Polish Cultural Institute.  Featuring the New York premieres of four contemporary Polish plays over the course of six weeks, this new festival is filled with powerful and engaging comedies and dramas written in the new millennium.  MADE IN POLAND: A Festival of New Polish Plays kicks off on Wednesday, October 22 for a limited engagement through Sunday, November 30.  Ticket prices range from $20 – $35 ($14 - $24.50 for 59E59 Members); a Poland Pass (one ticket to each production) is available for $60.  Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues).  For tickets, please call Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 or online at www.ticketcentral.com.  For more information, visit www.59E59.org or www.polishculture-NYC.org.

As Poland continues to adapt to a political democracy regained in 1989, and in the midst of a contentious Presidential election in Poland's vibrant contemporary theater scene heads to the United States, this timely and provocative festival thrusts Poland's vibrant contemporary theater scene onto the world stage.  Featuring productions by two of New York's top theater companies producing contemporary international work—The Play Company and Immigrants' Theatre Project (both OBIE Award-winners)—along side Theatre of the Eighth Day, one of Poland's oldest and most prestigious avant-garde companies, in their US debut.

Historically, political opposition in Communist Poland was manifested in arts and culture, most notably withthe closing, by order of the Soviet ambassador, of a revival of Adam Mickiewicz's classic 19th-century poetic drama Forefathers performed at The National Theatre in Warsaw. In the early 1970s, a state-subsidized but cautiously tolerated student theater movement was able to become a limited but influential forum for dissent within the system.

Many of Poland's best-known theater artists later became activists in the Solidarity movement and many were interned with the 1981 imposition of Martial Law. The most uncompromising of thEm Lost their jobs and some companies had to leave the country. One such group makes its US debut at MADE IN POLAND: A Festival of New Polish Plays—Poznan's venerable Theatre of the Eighth Day, with its 2007 docudrama THE FILES.

The initial expectation of the theater in a post-communist Poland was that it would focus on light entertainment—theater was no longer needed as an outlet for political subversion.  However, as Poland built its new democracy, idealism waned as new problems and concerns inherent in a democratic society began to take root.  The theater once again answered the call, most notably the playwright Przemyslaw Wojcieszek, whose sensational new play MADE IN POLAND receives its US premiere, produced by the critically acclaimed and OBIE Award-winning The Play Company.

Finally, some playwrights left behind the pressure of politics to examine the more personal, yet no less profound, themes of love and the complication of human relationships. Two one-act plays by Michal Walczak, Sandbox/The First Time, which will be presented together at the Festival, examine the ferocious, tragicomic, rough-and-tumble between the sexes, produced by the OBIE Award-winning Immigrants' Theatre Project.

MADE IN POLAND: A Festival of New Polish Plays list of shows:

Wednesday, October 22 – Sunday, November 9
THE FILES, text selection by Ewa Wojciak and Katarzyna Madon-Mitzner; directed by the Ensemble, which features Ewa Wojciak, Marcin Keszycki, Adam Borowski and Tadeusz Janiszewski. Produced by Theatre of the Eighth Day.

Founded in 1964, Theatre of the Eighth Day unwittingly became Poland's foremost political theater of opposition under the Communist regime. Kept under surveillance by the Secret Police, plagued by the authorities, and accused of criminality, the theater managed to create some of the most important Polish performances of the 1970s.  THE FILES is based on actual Secret Police reports on the Theatre's actors written during the period from 1975 to 1983 (reports that by definition also covered the actors' contacts, friendships, and meetings), juxtaposed with the actors' private letters at the time the reports were written, as well as parts of old performances to which the reports referred. Performed in English.

Wednesday, October 29 – Sunday, November 30
MADE IN POLAND by Przemyslaw Wojcieszek, directed by Jackson Gay. Produced by The Play Company.

Exuberant, funny and fierce, a rebellious young man furiously searches for guidance and authority in the new, post-communist Poland, challenging his priest, his teacher and even local gangsters to show him the way. In the end, love saves the day.  Jackson Gay (Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, Scarcity) directs the American premiere of this popular hit by one of Poland's foremost young theatre artists.

Thursday, November 13 – Sunday, November 30
SANDBOX/THE FIRST TIME, two one-act comedies by Michal Walczak, translated by Benjamin Paloff.  Piotr Kruszcynski directs Sandbox; Marcy Arlin directs The First Time. Produced by Immigrants' Theatre Project.

These two one-act comedies by Michal Walczak examine the ferocious, tragicomic, rough-and-tumble between the sexes.  Both plays explore different stages of relationships, and they are underlaid with that particular brand of cynicism and absurdism found in Eastern European theater. The battle of the sexes literally starts in the SANDBOX, in this hilarious confrontation between a boy guarding his space and a girl who just wants to play. THE FIRST TIME is an outrageous look at erotic initiation under absurd circumstances. When a woman demands that their first time be "perfect," her boyfriend's multiple attempts at perfection get thwarted at every turn.

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