Tickets Available Now for DOWNTOWN LIVE

The Alliance for Downtown New York, in association with En Garde Arts and The Tank announced today additional details for Downtown Live, a new free performing arts festival. Over two weekends in May, Downtown Live's over 30 in-person shows will bring live art performances to unexpected places across Lower Manhattan, including a covered loading dock (4 New York Plaza), an arcade along the Stone Street Historic District (85 Broad Street) and a plaza with harbor views near The Battery (One Battery Park Plaza). After a year of lockdown, Downtown Live offers audiences a long-awaited chance to see live theatre, contemporary performance and music from a lineup that features many Obie Award and Pulitzer Prize winners, as well as emerging voices. Audience members will have a chance to engage with live, pandemic-responsible programming and explore all that Lower Manhattan has to offer.

Confirmed artists participating in Downtown Live include Pulitzer Prize finalist and celebrated writer and performer Eisa Davis with Kaneza Schaal and Jackie Sibblies Drury as directing consultant; Artistic Director of the Obie-Award winning theater The Tank Meghan Finn and Kaaron Briscoe; Obie Award-winning, Off-Broadway favorite playwright and actor David Greenspan; award-winning New York-based Brazilian Theater Company, Group .BR; hip-hop, spoken word and performance artists Baba Israel & Grace Galu; popular downtown music and storytelling duo James & Jerome; classical singer/musical theatre composer and performer Katie Madison; Lucille Lortel Award-winning performer Kuhoo Verma with Justin Ramos; and genre-bending songwriter, theatre-maker and solo performer Ellen Winter directed by Machel Ross.

Tickets to Downtown Live are free with reservations required and are available now at thetanknyc.org/downtown-live. All attendees will be required to follow COVID Safety Protocols, including mask and social distancing guidelines. Space is extremely limited.

More information about the performances including a schedule, can be found below:

PERFORMING AT 85 BROAD ST.

REMEMBRANCE

By Kathleen Collins

Performed by Eisa Davis and Kaneza Schaal

Directorial Consultant: Jackie Sibblies Drury

Performances: Sunday May 16 at 6:30pm; Saturday May 22 at 1:30 & 4pm; Sunday May 23 at 4pm

Pathbreaking director and writer Kathleen Collins (Losing Ground) died of cancer at age 46, leaving behind a trove of short stories, screenplays and play scripts the public had never seen. Thanks to her daughter Nina, who has devoted herself to publishing and distributing her mother's works, we can now experience the full intellectual sweep and visceral charge of this black woman's unorthodox vision. In tandem with various artists performing works by Collins across the city and the globe, Kaneza Schaal and Eisa Davis premiere an unproduced one act, Remembrance, intertwined with words of Collins' own. Directorial consulting by Jackie Sibblies Drury.

ONE NIGHT STAND

Conceived and Sung by David Greenspan

Music Direction and Piano by Jamie Lawrence

Performances: Saturday May 15 at 4pm & 6pm; Sunday May 16 at 1:30pm; Sunday May 23 at 6:30pm

Downtown Icon David Greenspan's latest performance piece, One Night Stand, includes singing songs associated with iconic women singers - Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Fanny Brice, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, Betty Hutton (yeah, her.) Featuring Music Direction and Piano by Jamie Lawrence.

ELLEN WINTER

Directed by Machel Ross

Performances: Saturday May 15 at 1:30pm; Sunday May 16 at 4pm; Saturday May 22 at 6:30pm; Sunday May 23 at 1:30pm

Songstress Ellen Winter is so very thrilled to finally play a live show again she could cry. And she'll probably do just that! Join her and her keyboard and her many feelings for a glitter-fueled intimate and irreverent celebration of what it means to be alive. Featuring music from her debut album, Every Feeling I've Ever Felt, and directed by Machel Ross.

PERFORMING AT ONE BATTERY PARK PLAZA

BABA ISRAEL AND GRACE GALU

Performances: Saturday May 15 at 3pm; Saturday May 22 at 12:30pm & 3pm; Sunday May 23 at 5:30pm

Baba Israel and Grace Galu, both members of live Hip Hop and Soul band, Soul Inscribed, share a duet performance that uses the human voice to create a diverse range of musical traditions. Using live looping, beatbox and vocal layering, they create uplifting beats, soundscapes and songs that make people wanna move and be moved. They are members of HERE's HARP program where they recently received both the 2020 Map and NEFA National Theatre Project Grants.

SELECTIONS FROM [ taking ] space AND SUN SONGS

By Katie Madison

Performances: Saturday May 15 at 12:30pm; Sunday May 16 at 3pm & 5:30pm; Saturday May 22 at 7pm

Katie's work fuses spoken word with classic and contemporary genre defying musical theatre sounds. [ taking ] space is a song cycle about the journey of releasing the anxieties of occupying a Black body. SUN SONGS is an exploration of Our ability to leave Our bodies and look to the sky to help guide Us where We were always meant to be. Featuring Deborah Cowell (photo & video), Jarrett Murray (bass) and Jacinth Greywoode (piano).

PIANO TALES (NO. 21-24)

By James & Jerome

Directed by Andrew Scoville

Performances: Saturday May 15 at 7pm; Sunday May 15 at 12:30pm; Sunday May 23 at 12:30pm & 3pm

James & Jerome's beloved, ongoing and ever-changing project Piano Tales is finally back. At each performance, the audience chooses which three tales will be told (out of a possible nine) and in what order by selecting objects from a trunk. Then James & Jerome tell those tales differently for each performance, discovering a totally new show right along with the audience. The first live Piano Tales in almost two years, these performances will also be a celebration of communing outside together to tell stories and listen.

PERFORMING AT 4 NEW YORK PLAZA

Kuhoo Verma AND JUSTIN RAMOS

Performances: Sunday May 16 at 5pm & 7:30pm; Saturday May 22 at 2:30pm; Sunday May 23 at 5pm

Kuhoo Verma, known for her performance in Dave Malloy's Octet at Signature Theatre and the upcoming Hulu film Plan B, brings celebration, joy and music meditation into the space as we release a difficult year into the ether. She will be joined by music director and pianist Justin Ramos in this proclamation of joy!

LOST AND FOUND

Written by Kaaron Briscoe

Directed by The Tank's Artistic Director Meghan Finn

Performances: Saturday May 15 at 5pm & 7pm; Sunday May 16 at 2:30pm; Sunday May 23 at 7:30pm

In LOST AND FOUND, a new short play by Kaaron Briscoe, Angelle's search for a long-lost memory leads her to Marilyn's loading dock, brimming with the collective lost moments of New Yorkers. This delicate, heartfelt little play reminds us of the New York we've been longing for-it's the people that make this place magic. Featuring lighting design by Brian Aldous.

METANÓIA

By Group .BR

Directed by Jonathan Hart Makwaia

Performances: Saturday May 15 at 2:30pm; Saturday May 22 at 5pm & 7:30pm; Sunday May 23 at 2:30pm

In this site-specific physical theater play about identity and relationships in an ever-changing reality, Andressa Furletti and Debora Balardini embody some of the contradictions and flip-flops throughout recent events. Presented by Group .BR, NY's only Brazilian theatre company, and directed by Jonathan Hart Makwaia, METANÓIA offers a reflection on how a state of fear and hysteria brings us to a transformative change of hearts. A constant search for the new normality through movement, music, voice and a "dose" of humor.

Overseeing the physical production of the festival is Mosaic NYC, a Women- and Black-owned event design and production company specializing in bespoke theatre, music and branded events. To learn more, visit mosaicnyc.com.

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