Sinking Ship's Drama Desk-Nominated A HUNGER ARTIST To Extend At The Connelly Theater

With performances selling out at the Connelly Theater, Sinking Ship Productions' acclaimed, Drama Desk Award-nominated A Hunger Artist will extend through February 8th. Created collaboratively by performer Jonathan Levin, playwright Josh Luxenberg, and director Joshua William Gelb, A Hunger Artist returned to NYC after a recent sold-out run in Norway and tour dates in the U.S. and in Europe, including at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it ranked as one of the best-reviewed shows of 2017 (according to tallies by List Magazine), and won Summerhall's prestigious Lustrum Award for Excellence.

"We've started to see people coming to the show two and three times. It's gratifying that the work is resonating with audiences so strongly," said Luxenberg, who is also Sinking Ship's co-Artistic Director (with Levin).

About the show: A man sits alone in a cage, starving himself for your entertainment. Sinking Ship Productions' unique, visually-striking adaptation of the Franz Kafka short story uses physical theater, Victorian miniatures, puppetry, and a set of deceptively simple props to support a powerhouse solo performance. Once cheered by thousands, the Hunger Artist is now forgotten by everyone except his one-time manager. What begins as a simple nostalgic story transforms into a startlingly inventive, darkly comic trip into the nature of memory, art, performance, and spectatorship, as told by the only person who remembers an artist whose act was simply... to hunger.

A Hunger Artist received Drama Desk Awards nominations for Outstanding Solo Performance and Outstanding Puppet Design and has been critically lauded.

The production is based on one of the few stories that Kafka did not order burned after his death. Kafka was still editing the piece when he succumbed to tuberculosis in 1924. Because the disease caused his throat to close, Kafka died of starvation while he was working on it. And, although never explicitly addressed, there is a disquieting sense that the forces, frailties and fascinations Kafka exposed in 1922 were linked to the rise of fascism back then and of far right populism today.

Performances are at the Connelly Theater (220 East 4th Street, between Avenues A & B). Tickets are $35-$50, with student/senior/artist discounts available. For more information, to view a trailer, and to purchase tickets, visit www.sinkingshipproductions.com. Remaining performances will take place Saturday Jan. 25th at 8pm, Sunday Jan. 26th at 5:30pm, Thursday Jan. 30th through Saturday Feb. 1st at 8pm, and Wednesday Feb. 5th through Saturday Feb. 8th at 8pm.

Website: sinkingshipproductions.com/a-hunger-artist
Facebook: Sinking Ship Productions
Twitter: @TheShipSinks
Instagram: @TheShipSinks
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/sinkingship/a-hunger-artist-trailer

Creative Team

The design team includes Peiyi Wong (set and costume design); Kate McGee (lighting design); M. Florian Staab (sound design); Charlie Kanev and Sarah Nolen (puppetry design); Jonathan Levin (props and toy theater); Ariel Lauryn (additional props and puppets. The production stage manager is Jackie Rivera.

Jonathan Levin (Performer/Co-Creator) is an international director and performer, and the co-Artistic Director of Sinking Ship Productions. His work on A Hunger Artist earned him two Drama Desk-nominations (Outstanding Solo Performance and Outstanding Puppet Design). Directing credits include Finding Balance with Alarm Will Sound at The Grandel, St. Louis, Powerhouse at the New Ohio Theatre (NYTimes Critics Pick), Flatland at EST/Sloan Commission, Ocean at Mabou Mines Residency, and there will come soft rains at FringeNYC (Excellence Award for Outstanding Direction). Jon is also a founding member of the Krumple Theatre company, with which he has co-directed and performed work throughout Norway and in NYC since 2014. As puppeteer Jon has worked extensively with Wakka Wakka: SAGA, Animal R.I.O.T., & The Immortal Jellyfish Girl. Jon is a graduate of the École Internationale de Théâtre de Jacques Lecoq and holds a BA in theater and neuroscience from Oberlin College. www.jon-levin.com

Josh Luxenberg (Playwright/Co-Creator) is Sinking Ship's co-Artistic Director. He is a playwright, director, and photographer. Credits with SSP include: A Hunger Artist (Connelly Theater/The Tank), Powerhouse (New Ohio, O'Neill Playwrights Conference Finalist, NY Times Critics Pick), Ocean (Mabou Mines Residency), Flatland (EST/Sloan Commission), there will come soft rains (FringeNYC). Josh co-wrote The Dial, an interactive narrative augmented reality installation created by NightLight Labs (premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2019). Josh is also the General Manager of the Connelly Theater, where his programming includes The Crucible (Bedlam), Plano (Clubbed Thumb), Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Diaries (New York Theatre Workshop), The Lucky Ones (Ars Nova), Futurity (Soho Rep./Ars Nova), Lypsinka!, The Offending Gesture (The Tank), and Daniel Kitson's A Show for Christmas. He worked in the writer's office of HBO's The Wire, and is an alum of the Baltimore School for the Arts and Oberlin College.

Joshua William Gelb (Director/Co-Creator) is a director, performer, and librettist based in the Lower East Side. In residence at Abrons Arts Center, Gelb most recently co-created, directed, and performed in jazz singer, a musical interrogation of the 1927 Al Jolson film. Also at Abrons Gelb conceived and directed the 150th anniversary re-imagining of America's supposed first musical, The Black Crook, about which he lectured at Harvard's Houghton Library. With Sinking Ship Productions he co-created/directed A Hunger Artist, which continues to tour. Other productions have been seen at Prelude, Ars Nova, Edinburgh Fringe, The New Ohio, Incubator Arts, Joe's Pub, Polyphone Festival, and Target Margin. Gelb is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and an associate artist with Sinking Ship. As a performer Gelb has appeared with Little Lord, Theater Reconstruction Ensemble, Haruna Lee, Woodshed Collective, TeleViolet, and Catherine Galasso. www.joshuawilliamgelb.com

Sinking Ship Productions, a Brooklyn-based theater company, is the creative collaboration between Jonathan Levin and Josh Luxenberg. They work with a core group of Associate Artists, combining physical theater, puppetry, music and movement in delightful, strange and unexpected ways. Their productions have grappled with concepts such as the creation and destruction of the universe as imagined by science fiction writers, how a man's search for connection could ultimately lead to complete isolation, and the limits of human understanding through the search for extra dimensions of space in theoretical physics. Previous productions include there will come soft rains (FringeNYC, Barrow St. Theater) and Powerhouse (New Ohio Theater), both of which played to sold out houses and extended runs in New York City.

In addition to creating original work, Sinking Ship also runs the popular NYC puppet and music series Puppet Playlist, which has has become one of New York's premiere venues for original short-form puppetry.

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