Theater in Quarantine Adds Live Performances Of Heather Christian's I AM SENDING YOU THE SACRED FACE

Theater in Quarantine, a pandemic performance laboratory from writer, director, and performer Joshua William Gelb and choreographer Katie Rose McLaughlin, has added two live performances of the world premiere of I Am Sending You the Sacred Face by Obie Award-winner Heather Christian.

Written by Christian for Theater in Quarantine, this evocative one-act musical charts the spiritual journey of nun and missionary Mother Teresa. Set to premiere on December 14 on YouTube, I Am Sending You the Sacred Face is directed and performed by Gelb in drag live from his 2' x 4' x 8' East Village closet. The 40-minute work features choreography and additional direction by McLaughlin and is presented in partnership with Theater Mitu's Expansion Works. Additional live streamed performances will take place on December 16 and 18 at 9pm.

 

In this soaring world premiere, Heather Christian, "a composer of blazing creative ambition" (Ben Brantley, The New York Times), paints an expressionist musical portrait of Mother Teresa highlighting the humanitarian's internal struggles. Christian uses her unique blend of blues, gospel, jazz, and soul to evoke the Saint's righteous calling and quest.

I Am Sending You the Sacred Face features a sonically rich score by Christian who pre-recorded all vocal and musical tracks from her home studio. Gelb, with the aid of drag dramaturg Dito van Reigersberg of Pig Iron Theatre Company and Martha Graham Cracker fame, not only embodies Christian's "unforgettable voice that somehow bridges Carol Channing and Joanna Newsom," (Time Out New York) but also channels multiple spirits in a highly physical performance. As Christian muses in the work, "Being the change you wish to see in the world is kind of a drag."

The additional creative team for I Am Sending You the Sacred Face includes Kristen Robinson (scenography) Stivo Arnoczy (video design), Ada Westfall (sound design and mixing), Justin Nestor (production manager), Ada Zhang (stage manager), and Brian Bose (social media).

 

Live streamed performances of I Am Sending You the Sacred Face will now take place on December 14 at 7pm and 9pm, and December 16 and 18 at 9pm on Theater in Quarantine's YouTube page. Following the live broadcasts, a recording of I Am Sending You the Sacred Face, along with the complete Theater in Quarantine archive, will be available at https://www.youtube.com/theaterinquarantine in perpetuity.

 

Shortly after the coronavirus pandemic closed all theaters, Joshua William Gelb transformed a 2' x 4' x 8' closet inside his East Village apartment into a white-box theater. Starting on March 30, Gelb and his collaborators began releasing pre-recorded studies in movement, clown, camera orientation, and perspective - building towards more complex theatrical experiences. On April 23, they premiered Theater in Quarantine's first live-stream performance: an adaptation of Kafka's The Neighbor which was followed by an unauthorized edit of Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape and collaborations with artists like Scott R. Sheppard (Underground Railroad Game), Nehemiah Luckett (Jazz Singer), and Ellen Winter (36 Questions).

 

Theater in Quarantine's recent productions, The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy and Footnote for the End of Time, were met with critical acclaim. Jesse Green in his New York Times critic's pick review declared that Theater in Quarantine has produced "some of the New Medium's most imaginative work from some of its simplest materials." Helen Shaw in Vulture wrote that Theater in Quarantine "makes confinement a virtue, a prompt to imagination." Maya Phillips in The New York Times noted, "These small-scale, digitally savvy productions have matched the texts in their idiosyncratic approaches." Most recently, CultureHub and La MaMa presented Mute Swan written by Pulitzer-prize finalist Madeleine George for Theater in Quarantine.

 

Please visit joshuawilliamgelb.com for more information and youtube.com/theaterinquarantine to stream all of the Theater in Quarantine original works.

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