Theaterlab Announces Its Fall Season Featuring World And New York Premieres, Dance, Clown, & Multimedia Pieces

Theaterlab announces its upcoming season-Homecoming-running September 12 through December 14, 2018 at its Midtown home (357 West 36th Street). Featuring six shows and the program Celebrate the Artist, Homecoming explores the notion of homes, both inherited and created, and examines what it means to return to a seemingly familiar space within an increasingly unfamiliar world.

The world premiere of Gabri Christa's visually poetic Magdalena kicks off the season in September, followed by the New York premiere of Reut Shemesh's electrifying dance memoir Leviah in October. In November, Michaela Lind's clown piece My Birthday takes our stage after a successful run at the Providence Fringe Festival. BIRDHOUSE's The Open Window from choreographer Raven Taisce White explores intimacy in the Gallery space in November and December. After a sold-out run at Theaterlab earlier this year, David Sauvage's Empath returns for two weeks in December. Mary Grace McNally's dance piece Not For Picking closes out the season. Additionally, Theaterlab's long-running program Celebrate the Artist returns in November focusing on the work of Teatro Del Disìo, an Italian theatre company founded in 2011 by Valerio Vittorio Garaffa and Chiara Cimmino. The program will feature an open house showing of their work as well as a workshop on Commedia dell'Arte and masks.

"Theaterlab is proud to be a space where artists can find a recurring home for their most daring and dangerous work," said Artistic Director Orietta Crispino. "Our Homecoming season creates a variety of opportunities for artists and audiences to connect, share space, and feel at home together."

The Homecoming season brings six shows to Theaterlab's Theater and Gallery spaces as well as a workshop and open house with artists from Teatro Del Disìo.

Magdalena
September 12 - 22, 2018 - World Premiere
Magdalena-a family story of love and dementia-is an intimate multimedia solo performance by the award-winning filmmaker and Guggenheim Fellow Gabri Christa. A deeply personal account of her Dutch mother's dementia and an effort to piece together her past, marked by struggles with war, interracial marriage and unconventional motherhood. Part family album, part story of love and race, but above all, a reckoning with the harrowing consequences of a devastating illness that affects an increasing percentage of the world's population. Theaterlab returning artists Erwin Maas (V: Virtue of Victory, 2016) and Guy de Lancey (Finding Fellini, 2016) contribute to the piece as director and designer/dramaturg, respectively.

Leviah
October 23 - 24, 2018 - New York Premiere
Choreographer Reut Shemesh (Wildwood Flowers, Theaterlab 2015) presents her award-winning memoir about vulnerability, power, conformity, and loss of agency. Composed of a collection of memories from service in the Israeli military, Leviah brings to light a phenomenon that is rarely spoken about: the emotional trauma and despair that female soldiers in junior positions endure. Leviah reenacts the gradual but consistent toll that political groupthink takes on the individual psyche. "Leviah is big, dark, brave, personal, but not private. Reut Shemesh allows dance to handle the art of dealing with vulnerability without portraying the victim as small and powerless." - TanzMagazine (Germany)

Winner: Cologne Tanz- und Theaterpreis 2017.

My Birthday
November 13 - 15, 2018
What does a birthday really mean Michaela Lind (Lorca! Duende!, Theaterlab 2011) delights and amazes with her new solo clown show. Everybody loves a clown, especially on her birthday. This physical theater work follows a clown as she prepares and celebrates her birthday. After all, we all have birthdays.

The Open Window
November 30 - December 2, 2018
An extension of Hot Winter (Theaterlab Gallery, March 2018), this movement piece investigates loneliness and the search for reciprocated human compassion. Six humans exist in a struggle to understand one another, unifying in difference while falling apart in sameness.

BIRDHOUSE is a Brooklyn-based, collaborative performance company built from a collective desire to create art through community. Led by Raven Taisce White, the group creates intensely physical performance works that strive to present real relationships, emotions, and community in order to help people-and themselves-understand each other in this uncertain and challenging time.

Empath
November 29 - December 9, 2018
Earlier this year, empath David Sauvage stunned audiences in our Theater with an up-close-and-personal look at his unique skill. He has the rare ability to feel what you're feeling-and to explain what it means for your life. The Guardian and Vice have featured him as a master of his craft. In this performance, David unfurls the surreal story of how a cynical Jew from Los Angeles uncovered this psychic superpower. He shows how he does it by reading volunteers from the audience. This is more than a show; it's an experience.

Not For Picking
December 12 - December 14, 2018
Choreographer Mary Grace McNally brings back Not For Picking (Theaterlab, June 2018) to our Theater for three days. McNally's work exists as an attempt to find strength inside of a softened, able body and to explore how societal ideas of women, the expectations and limitations, have influenced our bodies' reactions to the space and world around us. It works to reduce the severity of these historical pressures in order to better understand how women can move forward with change. It is a continuous cultivation of our 'womanhood.'

Celebrate the Artist
Featuring Teatro del Disìo: Valerio Vittorio Garaffa and Chiara Cimmino
Social Gathering with the Artists: Thursday, November 8, 2018 (Free)
Workshop: November 16 - 18, 2018

A favorite Theaterlab program, Celebrate the Artist, returns this fall, featuring Teatro Del Disìo, an Italian theatre company founded in 2011 by Valerio Vittorio Garaffa and Chiara Cimmino. The company was born out of sense of urgency to create a distinct and personal voice connected to the past and directed to the future. The company offers classes and workshops on Commedia dell'Arte and masks, the "mimic method" (a famous acting technique developed by Maestro Orazio Costa), acting and Italian diction for opera singers, Greek tragedy and Dante's Divine Comedy.

Theaterlab curates and presents new, experimental and hybrid work for theater as well as the visual arts. The company has a long-standing relationship with International Artists of note, showcasing their work to New York audiences. Theaterlab serves the NYC performing arts community through a number of developmental programs including Hotel New Work, the Solo Series, and the TLAB SHARES program. Recent productions include Reut Shemesh's Wildwood Flowers, Nicole Renaud's The Inflatable Salon, French POV#1-Body (Jacques Perdigues, Karine Laval and Pierre Kaufmann), Megan Metrikin's Finding Fellini, Underwater New York's A Held Posture by Hyung Seok Jeon and Orietta Crispino's Let Me Cook For You. Its resident company DAMN! Film Series was nominated for a Bessie Award in 2015 for a performance by Lil Buck, DPKOM, and Ryan "The Mind" Haskett.

For more information on and tickets for the Homecoming season, visit at www.theaterlabnyc.com. All performances take place at Theaterlab (357 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor; between 8th and 9th Avenue; Subway: A/C/E or 1/2/3 to 34th Street).

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