CultureHub and La MaMa Present MUTE SWAN by Madeleine George

CultureHub and La MaMa will present Mute Swan, the latest work from Theater in Quarantine, a pandemic performance laboratory from writer, director, and performer Joshua William Gelb and choreographer Katie Rose McLaughlin. Written by Pulitzer-prize finalist Madeleine George for Theater in Quarantine, Mute Swan is a queer interpretation of the Greek myth of Cygnus, a man who mourned the loss of his demi-god love, Apollo's son Phaethon, so much that he turned into a swan. Set to premiere on November 16, Mute Swan marks an expansion of Theater in Quarantine's physical footprint by literally moving its 2' x 4' x 8' East Village closet theater a few blocks over to CultureHub, located at 47 Great Jones Street.

Mute Swan is to be known as a 'Future Myth' about identity, distraction, courage, resistance, the redistribution of wealth, community board meetings, go-go dancing, and love. Written, directed, and performed now - for later. In another departure for Theater in Quarantine, Mute Swan features a central performance by Chris Bell and is directed and choreographed by Katie Rose McLaughlin (Hadestown) in collaboration with CultureHub, Bell, Joshua William Gelb, Raja Feather Kelly (A Strange Loop), and Gavin Price (Elevator Repair Service).

The additional creative team for Mute Swan includes Gavin Price (sound design), Joshua William Gelb (Video design), Raja Feather Kelly (costume design and creative advisor), DeAndra Anthony (lighting design and lead technician), Sangmin Chae (creative technology, livestreaming), Ada Zhang (stage management), Mattie Barber-Bockelman (creative producing and project management), and Billy Clark (creative producing).

Live streamed performances of Mute Swan will take place on Monday, November 16 at 7pm and 9pm with simultaneous broadcasts taking place at http://lamama.org/, https://www.culturehub.org/, La MaMa's Facebook page, https://howlround.com/, and Theater in Quarantine's YouTube page.

Following the live broadcast, the on-demand recording of Mute Swan, along with the complete Theater in Quarantine archive, will be available at https://www.youtube.com/joshuawilliamgelb in perpetuity.

Mute Swan is produced by CultureHub and La MaMa in association with Theater in Quarantine, developed in CultureHub and La MaMa's Experiments in Digital Storytelling Program, which incubates meaningful, story-driven artworks that harness digital distribution platforms, expand online audience engagement, and push the boundaries of current artistic forms. Powered by LiveLab, a browser-based media-router for collaborative performance by CultureHub.

On November 30, Theater in Quarantine returns to the home of Joshua William Gelb to present its popular dance series, Closet Works, which will feature choreography by Katie Rose McLaughlin and French choreographer Van-Kim Tran.

Theater in Quarantine will close its fall season on December 14 with a premiere by Obie Award-winning composer Heather Christian. Presented in partnership with Theater Mitu's Expansion Works, the new work is directed and performed by Gelb and features choreography by McLaughlin.

Shortly after the coronavirus pandemic closed all theaters, Joshua William Gelb transformed a 2' x 4' x 8' closet inside his East Village apartment into a white-box theater. Starting on March 30, Gelb and his collaborators began releasing pre-recorded studies in movement, clown, camera orientation, and perspective - building towards more complex theatrical experiences. On April 23, they premiered Theater in Quarantine's first live-stream performance: an adaptation of Kafka's The Neighbor which was followed by an unauthorized edit of Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape and collaborations with artists like Scott R. Sheppard (Underground Railroad Game), Nehemiah Luckett (Jazz Singer), and Ellen Winter (36 Questions).

Please visit joshuawilliamgelb.com for more information and youtube.com/joshuawilliamgelb to stream all of the Theater in Quarantine original works.

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