Target Margin Theater Announces 30th Anniversary Season Featuring Nine-Hour Theatrical Event

In its most ambitious work to date, the Obie Award-winning Target Margin Theater has announced details for We Will Care for You, a massive nine-hour theatrical event that concludes the Company's four-year exploration of The One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of classic Silk Road stories. This extravagant durational performance, marking Target Margin's 30th anniversary, surrounds storytelling with food, drink, and musical diversions. Running March 30 - April 24, 2022, with an opening set for Sunday, April 10, 2022, We Will Care for You is created by a diverse team of Silk Road and MENASA theater artists, working with director David Herskovits, who unfold an intricate fabric of stories from many traditions, told in myriad ways.

"Exploring the unparallel depth of The One Thousand and One Nights has been one of the greatest artistic joys of my life," says David Herskovits, "The stories contain infinite perspectives on power, gender roles, sexuality, joy, sacrifice, and family. I can't think of a more profound way to welcome audiences back inside our intimate theater in Sunset Park. At its core, theater is an act of community gathering centered on storytelling. As we reimagine what stories can be told and by whom, my hope is that We Will Care for You will allow audiences to consider ways we can dismantle structures of colonialism, cultural domination, and white supremacy."

We Will Care for You can be experienced in a single marathon or in sections over multiple nights. Marathon performances will be offered during the day as well as overnight. A detailed performance schedule along with ticketing information will be announced at a later date.

The cast for We Will Care for You includes Ali Andre Ali, Leonie Bell, Caitlin Naseema Cassidy, Rawya el Chab, James Tigger! Ferguson, Anthony Vaughn Merchant, and Lori Vega.

The creative team includes costume designer Dina El-Aziz, lighting designer Kate McGee, and scenic designer Carolyn Mraz with sound design by Herskovits.

We Will Care for You concludes Target Margin Theater's multi-year exploration of The One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of classic Silk Road stories. This body of work began in 2018 with the critically acclaimed production of Pay No Attention To The Girl, which Ben Brantley, in his New York Times critic's pick review, wrote, "Stories are shape shifters, as mutable and capricious as genies, in Pay No Attention to the Girl, Target Margin Theater's timely gloss on the rich and strange ancient tales known as The One Thousand and One Nights." It continued in 2019 with Marjana and the Forty Thieves, which centered on the tale of Ali Baba, and in 2020 with Pussycock Know Nothing, which wrestled with The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad stories.

As it builds towards the 9-hour We Will Care for You, Target Margin Theater will present a series of work-in-progress showings throughout the Fall of 2021. These showings are scheduled for September 24 and 25; October 23 and 24; November 20 and 21; and December 18 and 19, 2021.

All performances of We Will Care for You will take place at Target Margin Theater's The Doxsee, located at 232 52nd Street in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn.

As part of a four-year project, Target Margin Theater will collaborate with students from Sunset Park High School in the creation of a new devised work. Target Margin artists, actors, designers and directors will partner with high schoolers to devise their own take on oral storytelling traditions in Brooklyn today. Performances will take place at Sunset Park High School on December 3 and 4, 2021, and then move to Target Margin's The Doxsee theater on December 10 and 11, 2021.

Since 1991, Target Margin Theater has been praised for its aggressive interpretations of classic texts, lesser-known works, and new plays inspired by existing sources. In addition, Target Margin has served over 1,000 artists through its annual incubator LAB festival and has nurtured the next generation of theater makers via yearlong fellowship and residency programs. The 2021-2022 resident artists include Kareem Lucas, Larissa Velez-Jackson, and two artists to be determined, who will be given workshop space for 100 hours of development on their own schedule and in whatever way best supports their work; each artist offers a final public presentation.

Please visit www.targetmargin.org for more information.

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