Theater for the New City Presents BIRDS ON FIRE, Closes 4/10

Theater for the New City proudly presents the world premiere of Birds on Fire, a historical musical drama written and directed by Barbara Kahn. Music by Allison TartaliA. Puppet design by Candice Burridge. Musical direction and choreography by Robert Gonzales, Jr. Birds on Fire portrays what might have been the lives of four unidentified victims of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village. The production is part of the commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of the disaster. Featuring Zoe Anastassiou, Robert Gonzales, Jr., Gusta Johnson, Tommy Kearney, Benjamin Pike, Anna Podolak, Sarah Shankman, Allison Tartalia, Noelle Tate, Brian F Waite and Amanda Yachechak. Set and lighting design by Mark Marcante, costume design by Alice J Garland, sound design by Joy Linscheid. March 17 - April 10, 2011. Thurs - Sat at 8 P.M., Sun at 3 P.M. Tickets: $12. 212-254-1109. 155 1st Ave@ 10th St. Subway: L to 1st Ave, 6 to Astor Place. www.theaterforthenewcity.net Wheelchair accessible.

Birds on Fire uses life-size puppets to portray the people in power-factory owner, architect, superintendent of buildings, city alderman-contrasting with the immigrant Jewish and Italian employees. Two women, childhood friends from Eastern Europe in America for five years, have dreams of a better life beyond the factory. They help a recent arrival from Eastern Europe who tries hard to adjust to her new and difficult life in America. The young Italian seaman who helped her on the dock jumps ship to find this woman he loved "at first sight." The lives of these four converge in the Triangle Factory. They work hard, play hard during their precious hours of relaxation and share their hopes, dreams and love. The tragic fire that is the climax of the play steals from them their future as well as their past.

Barbara Kahn's plays have been produced in the U.S. and Europe. She has directed in New York, Paris, and at the National Theatre in London. Theater for the New City has been the primary home for Barbara's plays since 1994. She received the 1995 TORCH OF HOPE AWARD for lifetime achievement in non-profit theatre, previously awarded to Terrence McNally, John Guare, August Wilson, Horton Foote and A.R. Gurney. With Jackie Freeman, she co-authored the lyrics to "Actions are the Music of the Free," music by Jennifer Giering, performed at the United Nations Tribute to Dame Nita Barrow. A "short list of prominent post-1970's playwrights who identify as Jewish and who have written about Jews includes Jon Robin Baitz, Richard Greenburg, Alan Havis, Barbara Kahn, Tony Kushner, Barbara Lebow, Jennifer Maisel, Karen Malpede, David Mamet, Emily Mann, Donald Margulies, Elizabeth Swados, Jeffrey Sweet, Alfred Uhry, and Wendy Wasserstein." (You Should See Yourself: Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture. Vincent Brook. Rutgers Univ. Press.) She is the recipient of the 2011 Robert Chesley Playwriting Award/Wurlitzer Foundation ResidenCy Grant.

Allison Tartalia (composer) is an award-winning composer, and nationally touring singer-songwriter. Her debut CD, Ready, was enthusiastically received by critics, and she has performed at festivals throughout the country. Her latest project, Sweet and Vicious, was produced by Grammy Award winner Michael Leonhart (Steely Dan, Lenny Kravitz). Songs from Sweet and Vicious have been Finalists in the Solarfest Songwriter Showcase, CT Folk Festival, and Songwriter's Beat Songwriting Contests, and Allison was recently a Semi-Finalist in the New Music Seminars ‘Artists on the Verge project. An alumna of Fordham's London Dramatic Academy and The New School, it was inevitable that Allison's love of theatre and music would merge. In 2007, Allison's first foray into theatre as composer and arranger, 1918: A House Divided (book and lyrics by Barbara Kahn), was produced by Theater for the New City, and an original cast recording was released in 2008. Other collaborations with Barbara Kahn include The Ghosts of 14th Street and Walking from Rumania. Recently, Allison received an EMMY Award nomination and a bronze Telly for the score to the documentary 5,000 Miles From Home, which she co-composed and arranged.

Candice Burridge (puppet designer/associate director) graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2003 with a BA in Puppetry. She directed and adapted Edgar Allan Poe's "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" at the Theater for the New City, for which she was nominated for the 2008 Henry Hewes Theater design award for her puppet creations. She later directed and adapted Poe's "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" in October 2008. She also participates annually in The Theater for the New City's Halloween Ball, LES Festival and Street Theater. Candice is the Puppeteer Captain at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater and has been working there since 2005. Candice's visual art work ranges from painting, sculpting, mask making, sewing, and various kinds of puppet creation such as shadow and marionette.

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY (TNC) is a Pulitzer Prize winning community cultural center that is known for its high artistic standards and widespread community service. One of New York's most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 20-30 premieres of new American plays per year, at least 10 of which are by emerging and young playwrights. Many influential theater artists of the last quarter century have found TNC's Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers, among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piñero and Academy Award Winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. TNC also presents plays by multi-ethnic/multi-disciplinary theater companies who have no permanent home. Among the well-known companies that have been presented by TNC are Mabou Mines, The Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Ma-Yi Theater Company, which won an OBIE Award for its 1996 TNC production, FLIPZOIDS. TNC also produced the Yangtze Repertory Company's 1997 production of BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, which was the only play ever produced in America by Gao Xingjian before he won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature. TNC seeks to develop theater audiences and inspire future theater artists from the often-overlooked low-income minority communities of New York City by producing minority writers from around the world and by bringing the community into theater and theater into the community through its many free Festivals. TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and over 40 OBIE Awards for excellence in every theatrical discipline. TNC is also the only Theatrical Organization to have won the Mayor's Stop the Violence award.

Theater for the New City is a member of Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition

 

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