The Nonsense Company Presents GREAT HYMN OF THANKSGIVING

The Nonsense Company performs Great Hymn of Thanksgiving / Conversation Storm, an award-winning pair of intricate and urgent pieces blurring the boundary between experimental theater and avant-garde music, both written by internationally-known composer and company member Rick Burkhardt. The Company performs from February 5-15, with previews on February 3 and 4, at the Interborough Repertory Theater (IRT), 154 Christopher St. 3B.

Around a dinner table, three actor / musicians sing, pray, beat forks, deliver the news, and snap between scenes in mid-sentence in Great Hymn of Thanksgiving, a brutal deconstruction of War-on-Terror-speak. In Conversation Storm, three friends from three sides of the political spectrum argue their way through a ticking time bomb scenario, brutalizing their own positions, destroying the lines between real and hypothetical, past and future, day and night. Great Hymn of Thanksgiving / Conversation Storm was awarded "Best New Play" at the 2007 San Francisco Fringe and "Best of the Fest" at the 2008 NYC FRIGID Fest. Conversation Storm has been selected for publication in the anthology Plays and Playwrights 2009.

Since meeting in San Diego in the late '90s, The Nonsense Company (Rick Burkhardt, Andy Gricevich and Ryan Higgins) have been premiering cutting-edge new works in the fields of contemporary music and theater, touring nationally and internationally to rave reviews in over forty festivals, theaters, concert halls, universities, and community centers. Their powerful material, spot-on characterization, and breathtaking musicianship have garnered praise from critics, audiences and fellow artists. Their newly-translated and adapted production of Brecht / Weill's The Threepenny Opera was a Chicago Reader Critic's Choice of the Year for 2006.

Great Hymn of Thanksgiving / Conversation Storm
Winner, "Best New Play," San Francisco Fringe 2007
"Best of the Fest," NYC FRIGID Fest 2008

"An avant-garde musical dinner party unlike anything you've seen before, paired up with an escalating, yet non-linear, conversation about the "ticking time bomb" scenario that questions the ethics of torture in one of the most hysterically frightening works of theater this year."
Aaron Riccio, New Theater Corps NYC

"Thrilling performances... spiked with intense shots of satire. Through precise delivery and the sheer force of their concept and subject material, [the Nonsense Company] captivate their audience even as they disorient it."
Ronni Reich, Backstage New York

"Remarkable.... exemplifies what indie/fringe theatre is supposed to be.... hilariously funny and awesomely tragic at the same time... Our eyes and ears remain open and aware despite the disorientation. [The Nonsense Company] prove themselves artists to be reckoned with in this, their New York debut. We need them to come back with more of their work."
Martin Denton, nytheatre.com

"[Madison] rarely witnesses a company taking so many elaborately conceived risks on its own terms, or with such immediacy, as The Nonsense Company. Rick Burkhardt, Andy Gricevich, and Ryan Higgins create shows that expand the perspectives and materials of theater, twitching from one vantage point to another, from ghastly grandeur to snips of irony."
Scott Gordon, The Onion AV Club

"Moving, funny, and provocative... theater at its best."
Joey Seiler,
Austin 360

"Strange and compelling pieces.... introspective, recursive,
highly charged.... stunningly choreographed into visual theater
as well as an aural melange."
Dave Romm,
Shockwave Radio, KFAI Minneapolis

 

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