La MaMa Adds Performances of Richard Foreman's SUPPOSE BEAUTIFUL MADELINE HARVEY

Due to demand, La MaMa has added two additional performances of the world premiere of Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey, experimental theater icon Richard Foreman’s first new play in 10 years. Produced and performed by Brooklyn-based ensemble Object Collection, Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey is written by Foreman and is directed and adapted for the stage by Kara Feely with live music composed by Travis Just. Running December 13–22, 2024, performances take place at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre (66 E 4th St, Manhattan). The added shows will take place on December 18 at 8pm and December 21 at 4pm. Tickets are now on sale at www.lamama.org.

Beautiful Madeline Harvey has a problem: she is not certain whether she does or does not, in fact, exist. Handsome Roger Vincent, whose life has been stolen from him, waits for her at a boulevard café, where their eyes meet like an electric shock. A paper-thin love story within a paper-thin world, speeding, so it would seem, towards inevitable catastrophe… or perhaps, a very serious twist. Will Madeline Harvey disappear by fire, by time, or simply disappear at last into her very own story? And will handsome Roger Vincent ever be able to tell the truth about all things?

The cast of Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey includes Maggie Hoffman as Madeline Harvey, Daniel Allen Nelson as Roger Vincent, Catrin Lloyd-Bollard as Rita, and Avi Glickstein as Stephen as well as Nicolas Noreña as Bertrand, Timothy Scott as René, Yuki Kawahisa as Louise, and Alessandro Magania as Charles, along with voiceover work by Richard Foreman.

Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey features a live ensemble performing a composed score of bubbling synths, stuttering drum machines, processed woodwinds, and heavy guitars. The text of the play is scored throughout in a kind of notated speech that ducks and weaves through the dense sound world. The musicians include Chloe Roe on guitar, voice, and synths; Jack Lynch on bass, sampling, drum machines, and synths; and Travis Just on saxophones, clarinets, drum machines, and synths. 

Object Collection has been called “one of the essential voices in New York’s contemporary theater scene” (BOMB). Acclaimed for their invigorating blend of music and theater, Object Collection got their start 20 years ago in Foreman’s own Ontological-Hysteric Theatre. Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey extends Richard Foreman’s legacy to a new generation of experimentalists.

Richard Foreman remarked, “After searching for many years after I left the theater for something that gave me hope and excited me — Object Collection was it! The first theater company I encountered that was a theater of ‘shaking in one’s boots’ imagination, yet of such stringent discipline that one could only bow one’s head in respect. Object Collection is NEW theater, NEW music theater that wipes clean the slate of existing theater, and begins again but with a mastery that is undeniable and convincing. It’s what those of us who had given up on theater as a serious advanced art form for our times can only welcome with relief and enthusiasm.”

The creative team for Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey includes Peter Ksander (scenic design), Karen Boyer (costume design), Kate McGee (lighting design), Robin Margolis (sound design), David Pym (video design), Devon Wade Granmo (production manager), Kate Purdum (stage manager), and Shannon Sindelar (producer).

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