Martha Clarke Directs GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS at Minetta Lane Starting 11/8

Visionary director Martha Clarke brings Hieronymus Bosch’s provocative painting to life in Garden of Earthly Delights, exploring heaven, hell, and the beauty and sins amid, beginning performances Saturday, November 8 at Off-Broadway’s Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane.  The limited 12-week engagement is scheduled to open Wednesday, November 19.

Almost 25 years after Garden of Earthly Delights premiered; Martha Clarke is reinventing her creation, continuing to blur the lines between theater, dance, art, and music to create a world of her own.  An inspired synthesis of visual and performing magic, this breathtaking flight of imaginative genius is sexy, evocative, and unlike anything you’ve ever seen on stage.  Using state-of-the-art aerial devices created by the “Flying By Foy” workshop, Martha Clarke takes you on a journey from creation through Eden, earthly existence, damnation and redemption.  Garden of Earthly Delights is back in New York for the first time since the revolutionary production premiered at St. Clement’s in November, 1984 and then to huge acclaim in a groundbreaking run at the Minetta Lane Theatre in 1987.

The original production was honored with a Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience, an Obie Award for Richard Peaslee's original score, and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for choreography.

Conceived, directed, and choreographed by Martha Clarke, Garden of Earthly Delights features Sophie Bortolussi, Benjamin G. Bowman, Daniel Clifton, Marjorie Folkman, General McArthur Hambrick, Whitney V. Hunter, Gabby Malone, Jennifer Nugent, Matt Rivera, Jenny Sandler, Isadora Wolfe; with musicians Wayne Hankin (winds), Egil Rostad (cello) and Arthur Solari (music director, percussion).  Original Score by Richard Peaslee who received an Obie Award for Garden of Earthly Delights; Set and Lighting Design by Christopher Akerlind; Costume Design by Jane Greenwood; State-of-the-art flying devices created by the “Flying By Foy” workshop. 

Martha Clarke (Director/Choreographer).  MacArthur Award winner Martha Clarke’s career spans dance, theater, and opera.  She was a founding member of Pilobolus Dance Theatre and has choreographed for the Nederlans Dans Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Rambert Dance Company, and The Martha Graham Company, among others.  As a director, 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. 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 Euridice for the English National Opera and the New York City Opera.  She directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for The American Repertory Theatre and created Belle Epoque, a work based on the life of Toulouse Lautrec, for Lincoln Center Theater.  Clarke has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation as well as the National Endowment for the Arts.  She has received the Drama Desk Award, two Obie Awards, and the L.A. Critics Award.  Her Kaos, presented at New York Theatre Workshop, was awarded the first Tony Randall Foundation Award in 2006.

Richard Peaslee (Composer) has composed numerous scores for the theater and dance, including The Marat/Sade, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Oedipus and US for Peter Brook and the Royal Shakespeare Company; Animal Farm for Sir Peter Hall and London’s Royal National Theatre; Garden of Earthly Delights (Obie Award), Vienna Lusthaus, and Miracolo d’Amore for Martha Clarke.  He has worked with The New York City Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, Pilobolus, and choreographers David Parsons, Elisa Monte, Grethe Holby, and Twyla Tharp.  His music for big band has been performed by the Russo London Jazz Orchestra, the Stan Kenton Neophonic Orchestra, and by soloist Gerry Mulligan.  His score for the Joseph Campbell television series, “The Power of Myth,” was nominated for an Emmy Award.  He has also composed numerous concert works, several musicals, and most recently, Moby-Dick, a music theatre work presented in London.

Christopher Akerlind (Set & Lighting Design).  Broadway: Top Girls, 110 In The Shade (Tony nom.), Shining City, Well, Awake and Sing! (Tony nom.), Rabbit Hole, A Touch of the Poet, In My Life, The Light In The Piazza (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics awards), Reckless, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Seven Guitars (Tony nom.), Philadelphia Here I Come!, The Piano Lesson.  Recent: Kafeneion (Athens Festival); Superior Donuts (Steppenwolf); Orpheus X (Edinburgh & Hong Kong Festivals); Kaos (NYTW).  Obie Award for Sustained Excellence.

Jane Greenwood (Costume Designer).  Broadway:  Prelude to a Kiss, Our Leading Lady, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, On Golden Pond, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Retreat From Moscow, The Violet Hour, The Caretaker, Salome, Tartuffe, Fortune’s Fool, Mornings at Seven, Major Barbara, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, A Delicate Balance, Master Class, Passion, She Loves Me!, The Heiress, The Sisters Rosensweig, Plenty, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Medea, Burton’s Hamlet, and The Ballad of the Sad Café.  Off-Broadway credits include Belle Epoque, A Man of No Importance, Burn This, House/Garden, Vita and Virginia, and The Lisbon Traviata.  Operas include Dialogue of the Carmelites and The Great Gatsby for the Metropolitan, Nabucco and Rigoletto for the Chicago Lyric, as well as Flight and Jane Eyre for Opera Theatre of St. Louis.  Films include Arthur, Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, and the cult classic Can’t Stop the Music.  Awards include 14 Tony nominations, the Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award, the Maharam Award for Tartuffe, the Lortel Awards for Sylvia and Old Money, and the Helen Hayes Life Achievement Award.

Garden of Earthly Delights is produced by Rhoda Herrick, the Artistic/Producing Director of South Ark Stage which is currently producing a chamber musical, The Black Monk, starring Austin Pendleton at the Samuel Beckett Theater on Theatre Row.

Garden of Earthly Delights will play the following schedule at the Minetta Lane Theatre (18 Minetta Lane): Tuesday at 7pm, Wednesday – Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 3pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 3pm and 7pm.  Tickets are $40.00 - $69.50 and may be purchased by visiting Ticketmaster.com or phoning 212 307-4100.  Premium seats are available for $110.00; Same day rush tickets are available at the box office for $25.00 during previews and $30.00 after opening.  For more information, visit www.GardenOfEarthlyDelightsNYC.com.

Photo of Martha Clarke's "Garden of Earthly Delights" by Richard Finkelstein (copyright 2008)  

 

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