CHUCK.CHUCK.CHUCK. Premieres 2/10-2/28 At Collapsable Hole

Immediate Medium presents the World Premiere of CHUCK.CHUCK.CHUCK., a collaborative, multi-media piece based on William Faulkner's classic novel As I Lay Dying, from February 10 - 28 at The Collapsable Hole, 146 Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Tickets are $12 in advance ($15 at the door) and are available at www.theatermania.com or by phone at 212-352-3101 or 866-811-4111. Opening Night is February 12.

With text inspired by As I Lay Dying, CHUCK.CHUCK.CHUCK. is a collage of spoken word, video, music and dance. An investigation of dislocation, failure and loss, the piece follows the family members of Addie Bundren as they decide to leave their home to fulfill her dying wish - to be returned to her birthplace for burial. CHUCK.CHUCK.CHUCK. charts their arduous journey and examines crises of family and faith.

The novel employs a stream of consciousness approach, unfolding through a series of interior monologues told by fifteen narrators throughout 59 chapters; events are fragmented, often revisited from several points of view. In CHUCK.CHUCK.CHUCK., the performers dramatize Faulkner's literary techniques and layers of sound and video externalize each character's inner life, illustrating onstage the beautifully disjointed world of the book.

"For me, As I Lay Dying is about subterranean connections that exist between people: between each other, our families and our communities. Patterns emerge from the crap shoot of history and congeal as we go about the daily business of living our lives. The Bundrens struggle against their bonds, and in the process, very nearly destroy themselves," said director JJ Lind.

CHUCK.CHUCK.CHUCK. is directed by JJ Lind, artistic director of Immediate Medium, with choreography by Liz Vacco and musical direction by Jacob Cooper. Production design is by Maki Takenouchi, video and sound design by Rob Ramirez, costume design by Suzie Chung and Maki Takenouchi, and technical direction by Nathan Lemoine.

Featuring LeAnn Lind as mother Addie Bundren, Hugh Sinclair as father Anse, Max Dana as son Cash, Michael Rushton as son Darl, Siobhan Towey as daughter Dewey Dell, Megan Campisi as illegitimate son Jewel, and Liz Vacco as son Vardaman, Robin Aigner as Cora Tull, Suzie Chung as Kate, Brady Jenkins as Lafe, and Ben Vershbow and Vernon Tull. Featured music: I've Been Loving You Too Long by Otis Redding, God's Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash, and Theng ‘Bout Coming My Way by Tampa Red, Sitting on Top of the World by Mississippi Sheiks, and Ballad of the Absent Mare by Leonard Cohen, performed by Robin Aigner (guitar, ukulele, banjo), Suzie Chung (piano), Brady Jenkins (piano), Michael Rushton (banjo), Caroline Shaw (violin), and Ben Vershbow (guitar), and sung by the company.

Immediate Medium, Inc. is a non-profit performance collaborative founded in 2002 and dedicated to building a community of artists through the creation of works of art utilizing live performance and multimedia. The company seeks to challenge formal distinctions between performance, dance, film, sculpture and architecture in order to create new works of experiential art that engage and provoke creators and audience alike. Members of the company came together at Yale while studying and exploring mostly traditional approaches to theatre, sculpture, film, photography and dance. After moving to New York, company members began to work across media and more collaboratively, not elevating one artistic medium above another. Immediate Medium typically presents two new works per year, at venues as diverse as the Knitting Factory, PS 122, the Tank, chashama, HERE Arts Center, the Gershwin Hotel, IRA and Clemente Soto Velez.

JJ Lind (director) is a Brooklyn-based director, performer and artist, and artistic director of Immediate Medium. He has directed at the Flea Theater, the Tank and IRT, the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, CT and the Secret Theater in New London, CT. He has also collaborated with Joseph Maida on a video/photo installation entitled Celebrity, which was shown at Riva Gallery in Staged/Unstaged (cur. Lauri Firstenberg, Artists Space). JJ is a graduate of Yale University with a degree in Theater Studies. He works as a development officer for Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company.

William Faulkner (1897-1962), who came from an old southern family, grew up in Oxford, Mississippi. He joined the Canadian, and later the British, Royal Air Force during the First World War, studied for a while at the University of Mississippi, and temporarily worked for a New York bookstore and a New Orleans newspaper. Except for some trips to Europe and Asia, and a few brief stays in Hollywood as a scriptwriter, he worked on his novels and short stories on a farm in Oxford.

CHUCK.CHUCK.CHUCK. will be performed from February 10-28 at 8:30pm at The Collapsable Hole, 146 Metropolitan Avenue at Berry Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Hole has a history of producing innovative, challenging work such as that of Kate Valk, Elevator Repair Service, Young Jean Lee, and the National Theater of the United States. Tuesday, February 10 - Saturday, February 14 at 8:30pm; Wednesday, February 18 - Friday, February 20 at 8:30pm; and Thursday, February 26 - Saturday, February 28 at 8:30pm. Opening Night, Thursday, February 12. No performance Saturday, February 21. Tickets are $12 and are available at www.theatermania.com or by phone at 212-352-3101 or 866-811-4111.

For more information, visit www.immediatemedium.org.

 

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