Looking Glass Theatre Announces Spring 2010 Lineup

Looking Glass Theatre proudly announces its exciting Spring 2010 lineup featuring special V-Day New York City 2010 events, a return engagement of its popular children's show Ready, Set, Story! How Katie Saved the Sneaky Spider's Tales, new multimedia show Shriek! and a new family-friendly comedy about the environment, 70 Million Tons. All performances will take place at Looking Glass Theatre, 422 West 57th Street (9th and 10th Avenues).

V-DAY NEW YORK CITY 2010
February 12-13: Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Directed by Rose Ginsberg, co-presented by Looking Glass Theatre and _gaia

V-Day New York City 2010 once again proudly joins the global effort to raise money and awareness for local organizations that work to stop violence against women and girls. Scheduled events include three performances of a benefit reading of A MEMORY, A MONOLOGUE, A RANT AND A PRAYER: Writings To Stop Violence Against Women and Girls, a groundbreaking collection of monologues by world-renowned authors and playwrights, edited by Eve Ensler and Mollie Doyle. These diverse voices rise up in a collective roar to break open, expose, and examine the insidiousness of violence at all levels: brutality, neglect, a punch, even a put-down. These writings are inspired, funny, angry, heartfelt, tragic, and beautiful. But above all, together they create a true and profound portrait of how violence against women affects every one of us.

This year marks the first collaboration between _gaia and Looking Glass Theatre, together celebrating seven years of ending violence towards women and girls in New Jersey, New York City and beyond. _gaia is a collection of women artists that work to actively support the creativity of local women.

Proceeds will benefit two organizations: Women In Need, Inc., (WIN) of New York City and the York Street Project of Jersey City. These organizations similarly provide housing, help and hope to women and their families who are homeless or disadvantaged. Additionally, ten percent of proceeds will go to this year's V-Day 2010 Spotlight Campaign THE WOMEN OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO. More information: www.vday.org.

READY, SET, STORY! HOW KATIE SAVED THE SNEAKY SPIDER'S TALES
March 13 - April 25: Saturday at 12 p.m. and 2 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. (no shows April 4)
Written by Emily Paul, Directed by Rose Ginsberg

Katie is always getting into trouble for playing tricks! But then, she meets the greatest trickster of them all: Anansi the Spider, the African god of storytelling. When Katie peeks into Anansi's magical box of stories, three ancient myths escape from the box! Katie and Anansi travel through the missing myths, from Viking halls to the palaces of Imperial Japan, trying to recover the stories from the clever characters of Norse, Japanese and African folklore. But will Katie find all the stories before they are lost forever?

Appropriate for ages 3-11, Ready, Set, Story! captures the sense of wonder and excitement children find in their favorite myths, as well as the stories' incredible imaginative power. Who doesn't recall spending hours poring over tales of enchanted animals, bickering gods and goddesses, and brave heroes (and heroines!) on impossible quests? Clever tricksters who don't look like much, but always manage to outsmart even the scariest monsters? These folktales are epic yet familiar, magical yet human, ancient yet totally alive, and children simply can't get enough of them. And while the stories have been told for centuries, each new listener envisions them in his or her own unique way. This play uses movement, voice work, and playful costumes to bring mythical characters vividly to life, inviting audiences of all ages to explore their amazing, delightful worlds. As Anansi the Spider says, "Ready, Set... Story!"

SHRIEK!
March 19-27: Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.
Written and Directed by Fulbright Fellow Jennifer Goodlander

Scorned in one life - a woman seeks revenge in the next! Abducted and shamed, a beautiful princess demands that her captor Bisma make things right. He shoots an arrow, hoping to scare her away, but the arrow strikes and kills her. As she dies, she vows to return in her next life and avenge this wrong. Srikandi is born a woman but trains as a warrior. Armed with a bow and arrow, she goes to war. But, in battle Bisma has been undefeated! Only Srikandi holds the arrow that will bring him down.

Taken from the Hindu epic The Mahabharata, the production uses Balinese wayang kulit, or shadow puppetry, combined with music, dance, and video. Ornate two-dimensional puppets bring to life a story of love and war that points to a mythical past while connecting to a digital future. Wayang kulit is the ideal medium for this story as shadow puppets are at once solid and ethereal; present and connected to the past. They are the uncanny simulacrum of our daily experience, a tale of reinventing the self, a story of transformation and courage.

70 MILLION TONS...of icky sticky grimy muck
April 5-28: Sunday through Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Written by Terri McKinstry, Directed by Chanda Calentine

God has had it. She gave us a beautiful planet with beautiful animals, beautiful land, beautiful oceans, beautiful air, and beautiful minds with which to make it even more beautiful. Is that what we've done? No. And she's pissed! Fortunately for us humans, Ozie (the much abused ozone layer) has convinced God to give us one final chance. Unfortunately for us, She's tasked the most extravagant and wasteful director on the planet (Billie, "Broadway's Barracuda") to save us all from another Great Flood. Can Big Bucks Billie herd her cast and crew, who are expecting to perform Shakespeare, into Not Again, Noah!, a modern farce set in Brooklyn, on bare budget Off-Off-Broadway? And most importantly, can they make it environmentally friendly in an hour? If not, let the rain begin!

A light-hearted look at the environment and the challenge of reducing our carbon footprint, this family-friendly production is a mix of poetry and action. As the protectors of our planet, every one of us must make choices and changes that will put us on a more sustainable path. Audiences are encouraged to bring items to the show - water bottles, cardboard boxes, unused clothing, anything! - which will be re-used during performances, then recycled or donated to an appropriate organization. Laugh and learn with us... make a difference.

About V-Day New York City 2010 and Ready, Set, Story! director Rose Ginsberg...
Ms. Ginsberg is proud to direct her seventh and eighth productions at Looking Glass Theatre. Past Looking Glass credits include Gentle Girl, Lesbian Bathhouse, The Taming of the Shrew, and Doing Shakespeare. As a company member at Manhattan Repertory Theatre, she recently directed Chekhov's The Proposal and The Bear and Jean Anouilh's Antigone. Ms. Ginsberg has staged both The Vagina Monologues (Stiletto Project at The Looking Glass Theatre) and A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer (_gaia Studio with Arthouse Productions) for V-Day, raising money to help stop violence against women and girls. Her work has also been seen at Ensemble Studio Theatre and Dixon Place.

About Ready, Set, Story! playwright Emily Paul...
Ms. Paul is currently pursuing her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU TischAsia. Her work has been performed throughout NYC including at Dixon Place's Warning: Not For Broadway Festival and The Shortened Attention Span Festival. She is a graduate of the Gallatin School of Individualized Studies at NYU where she studied dramatic writing and mythology. She writes a mythology blog relating the old stories to modern living at http://omdammit.blogspot.com. Ms. Paul is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

About Shriek! director/playwright Jennifer Goodlander...
Last year Ms. Goodlander wrote and directed the children's show Adventures of the Puppet Princess: A Balinese Fairytale at the Looking Glass. Now, after spending almost a year in Bali on a Fulbright grant to Indonesia, she is excited to be doing puppetry for grown-ups. While in Bali, she performed wayang kulit, or shadow puppetry, at the Ubud Festival and at a temple ceremony. Ms. Goodlander received her MFA in Asian Performance and Directing from the University of Hawaii, where she directed numerous original plays. She studied and performed many styles of traditional Asian theatre, including Chinese opera, noh, kyogen, kabuki, hula and others. She has drawn from her Asian theatre training by directing interculturally informed productions of The Bacchae (Looking Glass) and a noh-inspired production of The Ghost Sonata. Ms. Goodlander participated in the Lincoln Center Director's Lab focusing on new work where she directed a staged reading of Fireflies by Suzue Toshiro that was later revised at the Japan Society. She is currently a PhD Candidate at Ohio University studying theatre and performance studies.

About 70 Million Tons director Chanda Calentine...
Originally from an Ohio farm-town, Ms. Calentine has been active in the NYC theatre community as a performer, director, choreographer, teacher and arts administrator for nearly 10 years. She currently serves as the Development Director/ Artistic Associate at Looking Glass Theatre and as Assistant Managing Director of the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, New York's premiere eco-friendly theater festival. As a director, Ms. Calentine has worked with Looking Glass Theatre, Impact Theater and Horse Trade Theater. As a choreographer, she most recently worked on productions of Two Rooms and The Imaginary Invalid. Outside of the theater, She pursues environmental awareness at PS 116 teaching Solar Energy Awareness and Oceanography, the NY Aquarium as a volunteer docent, and at her Brooklyn home where she is an active gardener and composter.

About 70 Million Tons playwright Terri McKinstry...
With more than twenty years of theatre experience in Washington, DC - director, actor, lighting designer, producer, and playwright - Terri McKinstry is also an artistic associate and playwright at Looking Glass. Her relationship with Looking Glass Theatre began with the Winter 2007 Forum (All In My Head) and a workshop of her a full-length play The Hope Chest in 2008, both directed by Chanda Calentine. Her other plays include Into the Dark, Page 26 and Happy and Lucky. By day, Terri is a professional facilities manager aggressively pursuing her LEED Green Associate accreditation. In the United States, buildings are responsible for over 38 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, 24 to 50 percent of energy use, and 72 percent of electricity consumption. Terri is learning how to minimize the impact of her office buildings on the environment. She is the President of The Foundry Players, Inc. in Washington, DC.

About Looking Glass Theatre...
Looking Glass Theatre's mission is to theatrically and truthfully reflect a female vision on the stage while creating a community of artistic freedom. We fulfill this by presenting female directors' visions of original works or the classics and by staging new plays either written or directed by women. This includes children's shows and educational programming as well as our semi-annual festival of new works, featuring emerging women playwrights and directors, each season. The New York Times called Looking Glass Theatre's Adventures of the Puppet Princess "charming" and "a substantial introduction to the culture of Bali." In June 2006, Looking Glass Theatre and Artistic Director Justine Lambert received The Lucille Lortel Award from The League of Professional Theatre Women.

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