NYU Skirball Theater Announces Worldly 2017-18 Season

NYU Skirball's 2017-18 theater season offers a wide range of presentations, from the political to the outrageous, and includes American premieres from the Palestinian Freedom Theatre, Chile's Teatro La Re-sentida, Ireland's bad boys THISISPOPBABY, and Berlin's outrageous Gob Squad theater. The Hypocrites theater of Chicago invites audiences onto the stage for a beach party in The New York premiere of its adaptation of Pirates of Penzance, and the public is invited to free, site-specific performances of the French classic, In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields, specially adapted for audience interaction.

IN THE SOLITUDE OF THE COTTON FIELDS A FREE Event

October 5 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, October 8 at 3 pm

This free theatrical event will be performed on the Grand Staircase of NYU's Kimmel Center, directly around the corner from the Skirball entrance.

The audience will receive headphones, allowing them to eavesdrop on the intimate, secretive and transgressive negotiations between a drug dealer and his client, in a new adaptation of In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields by the French playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès. The action of this French theater classic unfolds in an intense transaction between conflicting desires for drugs, love, connection, and a sense of existence. The play is directed by the innovative French director Roland Auzet, with a new English translation by Judith Miller, featuring Becca Blackwell and Tory Vazquez.

In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields is made possible thanks to the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, FACE Foundation, La Muse en Circuit, Compagnie Act-Opus, and NYU-Center for French Civilization and Culture.

Tickets: FREE (RSVP Required)

THE FREEDOM THEATRE: THE SIEGE - American Premiere

*October 12 - 22

The Siege is a passionate retelling of the story of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, during the height of the second intifada. Drawn from interviews with survivors, it is told from the point of view of some of the armed Palestinian fighters who found refuge in the church. Along with 200 civilians, they were given sanctuary by the church's resident priests and nuns and spent 39 days there with dwindling food, water and medical supplies. While the world watched, the fighters grappled with survival, idealology, and the decision to continue the struggle or surrender. Performed in Arabic with English supertitles.

The Freedom Theatre, based in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin, is dedicated to using culture and art as a catalyst for social change. Through workshops, classes and professional theater productions, the company helps Palestinian adults, youth and women develop tools to deal with the hardships of daily life under occupation. thefreedomtheatre.org

*Schedule: Tuesday - Saturday at 7:30; Sunday October 15 at 7:30 pm, Sunday October 22 at 3 pm

Tickets start at $65

THE HYPOCRITES: PIRATES OF PENZANCE - New York Premiere

*November 29 - December 10

Swimming pools, twinkly lights, a well-stocked Tiki Bar and beach balls welcome the audience to this raucous and utterly zany beach party adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance. The entire audience joins the cast on the stage-beach, immersed in the action alongside sappy pirates, dewy-eyed damsels, bumbling bobbies and one very stuffy Major General. In this New York premiere, The Hypocrites' Artistic Director Sean Graney brings his singular sense of humor to one of the most beloved operettas of all time.

The Hypocrites, founded in 1997 Artistic Director Sean Graney, is one of Chicago's premier off-Loop theatercompanies, specializing in mounting bold productions that challenge preconceptions and redefine the role of the audience. The company has a reputation for creating exciting, surprising, and deeply engaging theater as it re-interprets classics and tackles ambitious new works. the-hypocrites.com

*Schedule: Wednesday - Fridays at 7:30pm; Saturdays at 11 am, 3 pm & 7:30pm; Sundays at 3 pm

Tickets start at $65

THISISPOPBABY: RIOT - American Premiere

*February 15 - 17 at 7:30 pm

RIOT, the jaw-dropping theatrical highlight and winner of Best Production at the 2016 Dublin Fringe Festival, is a disorderly cocktail of wild theater, gut-punching spoken word, banging jigs, slapstick comedy and eye-popping circus that leaves audiences dazzled and dizzy. RIOT is both party and politic, a love letter of hope to the future, a clarion call on the state of the nation and a divine celebration - and a blunt criticism of the world today. The all-star cast includes Panti Bliss, Ireland's Queen of Drag; Up & Over It (former Riverdance leads); and Megan Riordan, star of Once - The Musical.

THISISPOPBABY, self-described "theatre makers, club creatives and good time gurls [sic]," lands somewhere between pop culture, counter culture, queer culture and high art. Founded in 2007, the Dublin-based company has played to sell-out crowds and critical acclaim throughout Ireland and around the world. In addition to making small and large-scale theatre and musicals, THISISPOPBABY has also produced alternative performance arenas at outdoor music festivals and created Ireland's queer arts festival, Queer Notions. thisispopbaby.com

RIOT is co-presented with Irish Arts Center. Irish Arts Center is an arts and cultural center dedicated to projecting a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America for the 21st century, building community with artists and audiences of all backgrounds, forging and strengthening cross-cultural partnerships, and preserving the evolving stories and traditions of Irish culture for generations to come. irishartscenter.org

Tickets start at $50

GOB SQUAD: WAR AND PEACE - American Premiere

March 28 - 31 at 7:30 pm

Gob Squad, Berlin's outlandish theater renegades, set their sights on Tolstoy's opus War and Peace, only to discover that neither war nor peace are coming without a fight. The setting is a literary salon, where audience members join the cast in a live theater/video performance in which art and daily life, history and the present, realityand fiction blur. In this American premiere, a never-ending parade of characters dance, dine and duel while performers prepare for scenes as if going into battle, reframing Tolstoy's central inquiry: Can we live a moral life in an imperfect world?

Gob Squad, Berlin's notorious and challenging arts collective, makes live video performances that unsettle the lines between the prepared and the improvised, performer and bystander, fiction and life. Gob Squad has been devising, directing and performing together since 1994, motivated by a desire to elevate the everyday and empower audience members to step beyond their traditional role as passive spectators. www.gobsquad.com

Tickets start at $50

TEATRO LA RE-SENTIDA: THE DICTATORSHOP OF COOLNESS - American Premiere

April 5 - 7 at 7:30 pm

The Dictatorship of Coolness is a raucous social satire reflecting on art, culture and contemporary lifestyles,inspired by Moliere´s "The Misanthrope." The show is set on the 1st of May, as Santiago's cultural and artistically elite gather to celebrate the new Minister of Culture. As the streets pulse with the ambiance of protest, the Minister realizes the hypocrisy and inefficiency of bourgeois culture and renounces capitalism and greed, turning the celebration into a nightmare.

La Re-sentida (The Resentful) is a collective of young activists and artists from the Chilean national theatrical scenewho regard theater as a critical instrument with major political responsibility. Their work embodies the pulses, visions and ideas of their generation and assumes as duty, audacity, the desecration of taboos, and reflection generated from provocation. Their works give theatrical creation great political responsibility, understanding it as an instrument of critique, reflection and construction, and have been performed in more than 17 countries. Performed in Spanish with supertitles teatrolaresentida.cl

Tickets start at $50

NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE

National Theatre Live returns to NYU Skirball with screenings of acclaimed broadcasts. Launched in 2009, National Theatre Live broadcasts have been seen by an audience of over 5 million people at 2000 venues in 50 countries. www.NTLive.com

September 10: Peter Pan, JM Barrie's much-loved classic, filmed live at the National Theatre

November 20: Follies, Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman's legendary musical

December 12: Young Marx, a new comedy by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman

March 25: Julius Caesar, directed by Nicolas Hytner, starring David Calder and Ben Whislaw

TICKETS

Tickets may be purchased online at www.nyuskirball.org, by phone at 212.998.4941, or in person at the NYU Skirball Box Office: Tuesday-Saturday, 12:00-6:00 P.M. NYU Skirball is located at 566 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square, New York, New York 10012. Subways: A, B, C, D, E, F, M to West 4th St.; R & W to 8th Street; 6 to Astor Place

ABOUT NYU SKIRBALL

NYU Skirball, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, is one of New York City's major presenters of international work, and has been the premier venue for cultural and performing arts events in lower Manhattan since 2003. The 860-seat state-of-the art theater, led by Director Jay Wegman, provides a home for internationally renowned artists, innovatorsand thinkers. NYU Skirball hosts over 300 events annually, from re-inventions of the classics to cutting-edge premieres, in genres ranging from dance, theater and performance art to comedy, music and film.

NYU Skirball's uniqueness as a vibrant cultural center within New York University enables it to draw on the University's intellectual riches and resources to enhance its programming with dialogues, public forums and conversations with artists, philosophers, scientists, Nobel Laureates and journalists.

Jay Wegman is responsible for the direction and leadership of the Center's artistic programming. He previously served as director of the Abrons Art Center at Henry Street Settlement from 2006-2016, where he curated a balance of local, international, emerging and established multi-disciplinary artists. During his tenure, Abrons was awarded a 2014 OBIE Award for Innovative Excellence and a 2015 Bessie Award for Best Production. http://www.nyuskirball.org

Programs, artists and ticket prices are subject to change.

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