Squonk's MAYHEM AND MAJESTY to Play 59E59 Theaters, 12/10-29

59E59 Theaters will welcome Squonk with the NYC premiere of MAYHEM AND MAJESTY, created by Jackie Dempsey and Steve O'Hearn with Squonk. MAYHEM AND MAJESTY begins performances on Tuesday, December 10 for a limited engagement through Sunday, December 29. Press opening is Wednesday, December 18 at 7 PM. The performance schedule is Tuesday - Thursday at 7 PM; Friday at 8 PM; Saturday at 2 PM and 8 PM; and Sunday at 3 PM and 7 PM. There is no performance on December 25. Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues). Single tickets are $50 ($35 for 59E59 Members); and $20 for 17 and younger. To purchase tickets, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or go to www.59e59.org.

An epic spectacle of music, performance, and digital artistry, MAYHEM AND MAJESTY marks the Off Broadway return of Squonk after their smash debut at PS122 in 2000. In this lush phantasmagoria that defies categorization, the sonic hooligans of Squonk explore the power of sound through camera jibs, projection puppets, and kinetic machines. In Edinburgh, The Scotsman delighted, "Squonk... is like walking through the wardrobe to Narnia, or winning a golden ticket into Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Nothing on stage is remotely sensible, from the performers down to the props!"

Squonk is Jackie Dempsey, Anna Elder, Kevin Kornicki, Steve O'Hearn, David Wallace, and Heidi Nagle.

The design team includes Steve O'Hearn (production design); Bob Steineck (lighting design); Paula Ries (costume design). The Lead Video Designers are Buzz Miller, Jessi Sedon-Essad and David Wallace. The Kinetic Set Works is by Bradley N. Litwin.

Squonk created their first show in a Pittsburgh junkyard over 20 years ago, with choreographed cranes and roaring earthmovers and screaming machine shears. Composer Jackie Dempsey and artist Steve O'Hearn work with an ensemble of 10-20 artists to create post-industrial performances with original music, design, and staging, outside the rules of mass culture, fashion or academia.

Their first major commission was from Marc Masterson to create Night of The Living Dead: The Opera, in 1995. Their production of Bigsmorgasbordwunderwerk was at PS 122 in 2000, and called "ingenious, hallucinatory, hypnotic" by the NY Times. The production was "painfully" transferred to Broadway for 2 months where it nevertheless received an American Theater Wing Award. Squonk has since created eleven original productions and has performed in more than 250 venues across the United States. Squonkumentary, a film about their time in NYC, was produced by independent filmmaker Peggy Sutton in 2005.

Squonk has played on 3 continents and in over 25 states, and strives to create work that is accessible and transformative. Often overblown, site-specific and participatory (not to mention witty and shameless), the Buffalo News hailed them as "Rust Belt dada" and the Washington Post described them as "Debussy meets Godzilla.". They have shared squid for breakfast in Korea, and "ham und kaas" every night in Flanders, and missed meals because they were changing flat tires in Scranton. They have been touring internationally since 2003 - to Scotland, Belgium, Germany and South Korea, where they opened the Busan International Performing Arts Festival. Over 300,000 people have seen Squonk around the world, with reviews that include "insane majesty" from The Scotsman, and "...surreal and poetic" from USA Today. They have received six grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as support from Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Jim Henson Foundation. They also receive support from the Heinz Endowments, Buhl Foundation, Grable Foundation, Pittsburgh Foundation, and others. In 2011 at the invitation of the producers, they competed in season six of the NBC reality show America's Got Talent, making it to the top 48 and performing live for 14 million viewers.

This project is partially supported by a grant from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, a program developed and funded by The Heinz Endowments; the William Penn Foundation; the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency; and The Pew Charitable Trusts; and administered by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

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