Sinking Ship Productions presents the World Premiere of Powerhouse, a new devised play created by director Jon Levin, writer Josh Luxenberg and the Sinking Ship ensemble. Powerhouse runs from tonight, November 1 - 23, 2014 in a limited engagement at the New Ohio Theatre, located at 154 Christopher Street between Greenwich and Washington Streets in New York City. Previews begin tonight, November 1 for a November 2 opening.
Performances are Tuesdays - Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 3pm. The Sunday, November 2 performance is at 7pm, an additional performance takes place on Monday, November 3 at 8pm, and there is no performance on Tuesday, November 4. Tickets from $15 to $45. A limited number of $18 tickets for those under 25 years old (with valid ID) are available at the box office on the night of the show only. The Saturday, November 1 performance is pay-what-you-can. For tickets visit
www.Powerhouse-ThePlay.com or call 1-888-596-1027. The running time is 90 minutes. For more info visit
www.Powerhouse-ThePlay.com, Like them on Facebook at
www.Facebook.com/PuppetPlaylist, and follow on Twitter at @TheShipSinks.
Inspired by swing music, animated cartoons and futuristic machines, Powerhouse takes the audience inside the mind of the brilliant, idiosyncratic composer and electronic music pioneer
Raymond Scott. Eccentric and obsessive, he wrote fast-paced, tightly orchestrated compositions, attempting to reinvent swing in the 1930s. Wildly successful in his own time, his music would be completely forgotten were it not for its use in countless Looney Tunes cartoons of the 1940s and 1950s. Using physical theater, music, and puppetry, Sinking Ship's Powerhouse spins a kaleidoscopic, kinetic story about creativity and the chasm between what an artist imagines and what his audience perceives.
The cast includes
Erik Lochtefeld (Metamorphoses on Broadway, February House at The Public) as
Raymond Scott,
Tyler Bunch ("The Muppets," "
Sesame Street"),
Jessica Frey (Clown Bar at The Box, Ten with Partial Comfort), Spencer Lott,
Hanley Smith and
Eric Wright (Compulsion at The Public & Yale Rep).
The creative team includes
Carolyn Mraz (Set Design),
The Puppet Kitchen (Puppet Design), Nicholas Houfek (Lighting Design), Sean Brennan (Sound Design), Erin Schultz (Costume Design) and Sara Morgan (Props Design). The production team includes Dina Vovsi (Producer and Production Manager) and Carly Levin (Production Stage Manager).
TimeOut NY has called Sinking Ship "ingenious and stunning." "[Audiences are] constantly looking for the next new thing...and with this talented young company, we may have found it," said The New York Times. Back Stage described them as "clever and brilliant" and NYTheatre.com said "Sinking Ship Productions is most certainly a company to look out for."
Sinking Ship Productions is a Brooklyn-based theater company dedicated to the creation of dynamic, physical, thrillingly visual theater built using a wide variety of techniques, including puppetry, object manipulation, music and movement.
Sinking Ship was founded in 2008 by Josh Luxenberg and Jon Levin. Their productions have grappled with concepts such as the creation and destruction of the universe as imagined by science fiction writers (There Will Come Soft Rains) and how a man's search for connection could ultimately lead to complete isolation (Powerhouse). Flatland, a 2010 EST/Sloan commission, explores the limits of human understanding through the search for extra dimensions of space in theoretical physics and math. They like big ideas.
Sinking Ship also runs the popular quarterly puppet and music series Puppet Playlist, which has played to sold-out crowds since 2009, becoming one of New York's premiere venues for original short-form puppetry.
Sinking Ship Productions workshopped Powerhouse at the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival, where it played to sold-out crowds. The production won an award from the festival for "Outstanding Ensemble" and went on to play a short extension as part of the FringeNYC Encores Series. In 2012, the script for Powerhouse was a finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference.
Jon Levin (Director and co-creator) is co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of Sinking Ship Productions and an international director and performer. Most recently he performed in a Norwegian tour of SAGA by Wakka Wakka, with the mask theater company, The Krumple, of which he is also a founding member, and for Banksy's Better Out than In, NYC. His additional Sinking Ship credits include There Will Come Soft Rains, which he adapted and directed at FringeNYC 2008 (FringeNYC Excellence Award for Outstanding Direction). Jon is a graduate of L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq and holds a BA from Oberlin College in theater and neuroscience.
Josh Luxenberg (Writer and co-creator) is co-founder and co-Artistic Director of Sinking Ship Productions, and General Manager of the Connelly Theater. With Sinking Ship, he is the recipient of an EST/Sloan commission for Flatland. His script for Powerhouse was a Finalist for the O'Neill Playwrights Conference. His assistant director credits include The Importance of Being Earnest with
Lynn Redgrave (Paper Mill), Caroline, or Change (Centerstage), and CommComm (P73). He assisted
Anne Washburn and
Michael Friedman on a workshop of
Mr. Burns at
Playwrights Horizons, and worked in the writers office of HBO's "The Wire." Josh attended the Baltimore School for the Arts and Oberlin College.
New Ohio Theatre is a two-time OBIE Award-winning presenting venue that serves Manhattan's most adventurous theatre audiences by developing and presenting the boldest, most innovative work of today's vast independent theatre community. They believe the best of this community, the small artist-driven ensembles and the daring producing companies who operate without a permanent theatrical home, are actively expanding the boundaries of where American theatre is right now and where it's going. New Ohio Theatre nurtures, strengthens, and promotes this community; as they reestablish the West Village as a destination for mature, ridiculous, engaged, irreverent, gut-wrenching, frivolous, sophisticated, foolish, and profound theatrical endeavors. The theatre is accessible from the #1 train to Christopher St. or A, B, C, D, E, F or M train to West 4th St. For info visit
http://www.NewOhioTheatre.org.
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