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La MaMa Presents Richard Foreman's SUPPOSE BEAUTIFUL MADELINE HARVEY
Foreman's first new play in 10 years is directed and adapted by Kara Feely with live music composed by Travis Just.
By: A.A. Cristi Nov. 21, 2024
La MaMa will present the world premiere of Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey, legendary experimental theater icon Richard Foreman's first new play in 10 years.
Produced and performed by Brooklyn-based ensemble Object Collection, Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey is written by Foreman and is directed and adapted for the stage by Kara Feely with live music composed by Travis Just. Running December 13–22, 2024, performances take place at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre (66 E 4th St, Manhattan). Tickets are now on sale at www.lamama.org.
Beautiful Madeline Harvey has a problem: she is not certain whether she does or does not, in fact, exist. Handsome Roger Vincent, whose life has been stolen from him, waits for her at a boulevard café, where their eyes meet like an electric shock. A paper-thin love story within a paper-thin world, speeding, so it would seem, towards inevitable catastrophe… or perhaps, a very serious twist. Will Madeline Harvey disappear by fire, by time, or simply disappear at last into her very own story? And will handsome Roger Vincent ever be able to tell the truth about all things?
The cast of Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey includes Maggie Hoffman as Madeline Harvey, Daniel Allen Nelson as Roger Vincent, Catrin Lloyd-Bollard as Rita, and Avi Glickstein as Stephen as well as Nicolas Noreña as Bertrand, Timothy Scott as René, Yuki Kawahisa as Louise, and Alessandro Magania as Charles, along with voiceover work by Richard Foreman.
Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey features a live ensemble performing a composed score of bubbling synths, stuttering drum machines, processed woodwinds, and heavy guitars. The text of the play is scored throughout in a kind of notated speech that ducks and weaves through the dense sound world. The musicians include Chloe Roe on guitar, voice, and synths; Jack Lynch on bass, sampling, drum machines, and synths; and Travis Just on saxophones, clarinets, drum machines, and synths.
Object Collection has been called “one of the essential voices in New York's contemporary theater scene” (BOMB). Acclaimed for their invigorating blend of music and theater, Object Collection got their start 20 years ago in Foreman's own Ontological-Hysteric Theatre. Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey extends Richard Foreman's legacy to a new generation of experimentalists.
Richard Foreman remarked, “After searching for many years after I left the theater for something that gave me hope and excited me — Object Collection was it! The first theater company I encountered that was a theater of ‘shaking in one's boots' imagination, yet of such stringent discipline that one could only bow one's head in respect. Object Collection is NEW theater, NEW music theater that wipes clean the slate of existing theater, and begins again but with a mastery that is undeniable and convincing. It's what those of us who had given up on theater as a serious advanced art form for our times can only welcome with relief and enthusiasm.”
The creative team for Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey includes Peter Ksander (scenic design), Karen Boyer (costume design), Kate McGee (lighting design), Robin Margolis (sound design), David Pym (video design), Devon Wade Granmo (production manager), Kate Purdum (stage manager), and Shannon Sindelar (producer).
Eight performances of Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey will take place December 13–22, 2024, at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre, located at 66 E 4th Street in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of Friday, December 13, which also serves as the official opening. The performance schedule is December 13, 14, 16, 19–21 at 8pm and December 15 and 22 at 4pm. The first 10 tickets to every performance are $10 each. Tickets are available at www.lamama.org.
Please visit https://www.lamama.org/shows/suppose-beautiful-madeline-harvey-2024 for more information.
About the Artists
Richard Foreman (playwright) has written, directed and designed over fifty of his own plays both in New York City and abroad. Five of his plays have received Obie awards as best play of the year—and he has received five other Obies for directing and for “sustained achievement.” He has received the annual Literature award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a “Lifetime Achievement in the Theater” award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN Club Master American Dramatist Award, a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, and in 2004 was elected officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France. His archives and work materials have been acquired by the Fales Library at New York University.
Foreman is the founder and artistic director of the non-profit Ontological-Hysteric Theater (1968-present). Since the early seventies his work and company have been funded by the NEA, NYSCA, as well as many other foundations and private individuals. In the early 1980s a branch of the theater was established in Paris and funded by the French government. The theater was located in the historic St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery in New York City's East Village neighborhood from 1992-2008. www.ontological.com
Object Collection was founded in 2004 by writer/director Kara Feely and composer/musician Travis Just. The Brooklyn-based group operates within the intersecting practices of performance, music, and theater. Object Collection has premiered six original operas and numerous evening-length theatrical pieces. Their work has toured to Norway, Denmark, the UK, Japan, Canada, Italy, and the US. Object Collection's pieces have appeared in New York at La MaMa, Performance Space 122, Ontological Theater at St. Mark's Church, National Sawdust, Chocolate Factory Theater, Abrons Arts Center, Invisible Dog Art Center, Roulette, and Issue Project Room, among others. Albums have been released on Slip Imprint, Infrequent Seams, and khalija. Object Collection has received extended profiles in Frieze magazine, Pitchfork, The Guardian, The Wire, BOMB, and on BBC Radio.
About La MaMa
La Mama Experimental Theatre Club is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theatre. La MaMa's 63rd Season, The “La MaMa Beyond Season” expands our efforts to develop creative methods and tools for greater access to the arts. Pop up performances and installations will be happening in parks, neighborhood community centers, as well as online. By going beyond La MaMa's physical campus, new audiences and artists from different contexts are welcomed into the creative process.
La MaMa has been honored with 30+ Obie Awards, dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie Awards, Villager Awards, the 2018 Regional Theatre Tony Award, and most recently a 2023 New York Drama Critics' Circle Special Citation. We are a creative home to artists and resident companies from around the world, many of whom have made lasting contributions to the arts, including Blue Man Group, Bette Midler, Ping Chong, Jackie Curtis, Robert De Niro, André De Shields, Adrienne Kennedy, Cole Escola, Bridget Everett, Harvey Fierstein, Diane Lane, Charles Ludlam, Tom Eyen, Spiderwoman Theater, Tadeusz Kantor, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Meredith Monk, David and Amy Sedaris, Stephanie Hsu, Julie Taymor, Kazuo Ohno, Tom O'Horgan, Andrei Serban, Liz Swados, and Andy Warhol. La MaMa's vision of nurturing new artists and new work from all nations, cultures, races and identities remains as strong today as it was when Ellen Stewart first opened the doors in 1961.
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