THE FORTUNE TELLER Returens to HERE, 10/28-12/4

The OBIE award-winning HERE is thrilled to present an encore staging of the 2006 Dream Music Puppetry Program hit production The Fortune Teller.  This marionette play in miniature is created and directed by Erik Sanko and Jessica Grindstaff, and features original music by Danny Elfman and Erik Sanko and narration by Gavin Friday.  Set to play October 28 - December 4 at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue), this production will have its Official Opening on Sunday, October 31st (Halloween) at 9:00 PM.
 
Seven strangers' twisted tales are brought to life in this marionette play woven with haunting music.  On a dark night, the strangers arrive at the mansion of a deceased millionaire for the reading of a will, only to learn that their inheritances will be based not on the will, but on the readings of a fortune teller.  The proceedings take an ominous turn as each learns what's in store. The Fortune Teller is an eerily comic story of fate and fortune set in a meticulously handcrafted miniature world of curiosities.  In 2006, The New York Times described the show "A morality fable for grown-ups, evoking the familiar idioms of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton in a style you might term Victorian Ghastly," and Backstage hailed the production a "grandly satisfying piece of theatre in miniature."  The Fortune Teller was developed through HERE's Dream Music puppetry program.
 
Erik Sanko is a fixture of the NYC downtown music scene, having worked with many of its most notable artists such as John Cale, Yoko Ono, Jim Carroll, James Chance and the Contortions as well as being a 16-year veteran of The Lounge Lizards.  His own band, Skeleton Key, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1997 for the album Fantastic Spikes Through Balloon, and Erik's solo record, Past Imperfect Present Tense, was cited by The New York Times' Jon Pareles as one of the ten Best of the Obscure Among 2001's Albums.  The Kronos Quartet commissioned Sanko to create Dear Mme., an original music composition and marionette play, which opened the 25th Anniversary of the Next Wave Festival at BAM.  He composed and performed music for the world premiere of Ulrike Quade's The Wall (at MASS MoCA) that subsequently toured Europe extensively.  Sanko was the recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation Grant in 2006, The Jerome Foundation Grant in 2007, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council grant in 2008, a National Science Foundation grant and The New York State Composer's Grant in 2009, as well as a recipient of the MAP Fund in 2010.  He holds a B.F.A. from Cooper Union and has been a closet puppet maker since childhood.
 
Jessica Grindstaff is a New York-based artist who, since the 1990s, has been recognized as a creator of haunting, meticulously constructed music box dioramas and paintings in wax and chalkboard.  In 2006, Jessica began to explore a range of additional media, completing the case artwork for the National Book Award nominee, Only Revolutions, by Mark Z. Danielewski; serving as art director for The Fortune Teller; working as a contributing artist to The Wall, Ulrike Quade's theatrical experimentation at MASS MoCA and in the Netherlands; and designing sets for the Kronos Quartet collaboration, Dear Mme. and the Danish premiere of Andrew Bovell's play, Speaking In Tongues.  In 2008 she created a post-Chernobyl stage design for Flesh And Blood And Fish And Fowl with Geoff Sobelle (Rainpan and Pig Iron) and Charlotte Ford that premiered in Edinburgh this summer.  Grindstaff is a recipient of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artist and Writers grant and a 2010 Map Fund Recipient.
 
In 2007, Eriko Sanko and Jessica Grindstaff founded Phantom Limb, a theater and design company under which all of their projects are now created.  Phantom Limb collaborated with the Ping Chong Company on The Devil You Know for the 2010 Under the Radar festival (Erik Sanko, marionettes and score / Jessica Grindstaff, set design) and is at work on a new Lemony Snicket production called The Composer Is Dead being produced by Berkeley Rep for a December 2010 premiere.  Phantom Limb is concurrently developing 69? S. in collaboration with The Kronos Quartet, inspired by Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914-16 Trans-Antarctic Expedition.  69? S. will be developed in Gronnigen, Netherlands for the Norderzon Festival 2011 and have its American premiere at BAM's Next Wave Festival.  In development for 69? S., Phantom Limb has had residencies at MASSMoCA, Dartmouth College, The Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia and received the Artists' and Writers' research grant from The National Science Foundation which enabled them to travel to Antarctica in January 2010.  For 2013-14, Phantom Limb is collaborating and co-production designing an opera with Grindstaff about Serbian scientist Nikola Tesla.  The opera is being composed by Phil Kline and directed by Jim Jarmusch.  Phantom Limb's The Fortune Teller debuted at the HERE in 2006, where it was extended for three sold-out months.  The production was later featured at the UCLA Live Festival in Los Angeles for another 17 sold-out shows.
 
Original Music for The Fortune Teller was created collaboratively by musician Erik Sanko and composer/song writer Danny Elfman.
 
Danny Elfman is known for composing major motion pictures scores such as Spiderman, Men in Black, Good Will Hunting and for his collaborations with director Tim Burton on such films as Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Beetlejuice, among others.  He has also written theme songs for several TV shows including The Simpsons and Desperate Housewives.
 
Recorded narration in The Fortune Teller is provided by Irish vocalist, artist, composer Gavin Friday.  The accomplished musician founded the hit European band Virgin Prunes in 1977, and has spent time as a painter, cabaret host and performer.  Since 1987 he has composed/performed with pianist Maurice Seezer on various projects and albums.  His film work includes a collaboration with Bono for the 1993 film In the Name of the Father, recording the title track and the Sinead O'Connor hit "You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart."  With Maurice Seezer he contributed the song "Angel" to the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack and wrote the score for the Australian film Angel Baby.  Other film scores include The Boxer, Disco Pigs and In America.  More recently, Friday and Seezer teamed with producer Quincy Jones to score the 50 Cent biopic Get Rich or Die Trying.  He also made his screen debut with a performance in 2005's film Breakfast on Pluto.
 
The Fortune Teller includes puppetry by Sabrina D'Angelo, Honey Goodenough, Anne Posluszny and Ian Sweetman.  Marionettes are by Erik Sanko.  Architectural Design is by Selin Maner.  Mansion construction is by Matthew Acheson.  Lighting Design is by Andrew Hill.  Sound Design is by Andy Green. 
 
The Fortune Teller was developed through HERE's Dream Music Puppetry Program led by Basil Twist.  The Dream Music Puppetry Program is one of few programs in the country to grow and commission contemporary adult puppet works.  Dream Music provides performance opportunities to puppet artists and encourages multidisciplinary collaboration to develop new puppetry techniques.  This program debuted with the premiere of Basil Twist's OBIE-award winning Symphonie Fantastique in 1998 and the opening of the Dorothy B. Williams Theatre, an intimate space created specifically for intimate puppetry.  Under the artistic direction of Twist with producing direction from HERE co-founder Barbara Busackino, the Dream Music aesthetic is geared toward puppet works that feature live music as a collaborative element.  Dream Music seeks to secure the future of puppetry by providing increased development and performance opportunities to puppet artists, and by collaborating with artists from other disciplines to develop new puppetry techniques.  Over the past ten years, Dream Music has presented in the Dorothy B. Williams Theatre many exciting artists ranging from eclectic international troupes to The Jim Henson International Festival of Puppetry and has commissioned over 20 full-scale puppetry works from New York based puppeteers including the acclaimed Arias with a Twist in 2008.
 
Since 1993, the OBIE-winning HERE, Kristin Marting, Artistic Director and Kim Whitener, Producing Director, has been one of New York's premier arts organizations and a leader in producing and presenting new, hybrid performance work which HERE views as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines-theatre, dance, music, puppetry, visual, multi-media art.  Past productions include Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique, Hazelle Goodman's On Edge, Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers, Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, Corey Dargel's Removable Parts and Theatre of a Two-headed Calf's Drum of the Waves of Horikawa, among other standouts.
 
HERE's work is challenging and alternative and offers audiences the opportunity to feel that they are part of something new and fresh.  Its core program is the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), which invites artists to develop complex hybrid work at HERE over three years.  Each season, HERE produces 4-6 Resident Artist productions as mainstage works.  By providing varied levels of artist participation - Resident Artists, Visiting Artists, and Guest Artists through HEREstay, its curated rental program - HERE keeps the artists' vision paramount.