Untitled Theater Company #61 Stages THE VELVET ORATORIO, Now thru 1/14

The Velvet Oratorio, an original opera/theater piece commemorating the 25th anniversary of The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, will be presented in the grand ballroom at the current home of the Czech Center and the Czech Consulate: The Bohemian National Hall. The Velvet Oratorio is an evocative retelling of the Velvet Revolution through found text, choral music, and scenes inspired by Václav Havel's Van?k plays.

The piece is organized as a series of alternating scenes and choruses, the chorus representing the crowds in Prague during the events spanning November 17 1989 to January 1, 1990. The text for the oratorio is based partly upon recently released U.S. State Department documents and corresponding Czechoslovakian / Soviet documents and interviews with journalists, diplomats, and ordinary people who were in the streets of Prague during the revolution.

The Velvet Oratorio was original staged as a concert for New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' festival, Performing Revolution in Central and Eastern Europe. This will be a full staging of the piece. Reviewing the concert, Musical America said "The scenes are played for irony, contradiction and some bawdy humor, which lends sympathy and humanism to the political subject and the paranoid atmosphere that defined the era ... Henry Akona's cleverly dissonant, rhythmic music [is] deftly and tastefully orchestrated ... a tasteful and thought-provoking reminder of the rapid change brought to Central Europe in those heady and confusing days."

Untitled Theater Company #61 (UTC61) is a Theater of Ideas: scientific, political, philosophical, and above all theatrical. UTC61 has been collaborating with the Czech theater community since it produced the 2006 Havel Festival, the first-ever presentation of Václav Havel's complete dramatic works. Since then, UTC61 has focused on many topics of Czech interest, the most recent being The Pig, or Václav Havel's Hunt for a Pig, Critic's Picks by both The New York Times and The Village Voice. Other recent projects include The Lathe of Heaven and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, both at the 3LD Art + Technology Center, and Iphigenia in Aulis and The God Projekt (associate producer), both at La MaMa.

Untitled Theater Company #61 in association with The Consulate General of the Czech Republic in New York present The Velvet Oratorio, written by Edward Einhorn and composed and directed by Henry Akona. The show runs at the Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street tonight, Nov 8 at 8pm, Sun Nov 9 at 5pm*; Fri Dec 12 at 8pm Sat Dec 13 at 8pm; and Tue Jan 13 at 8pm Wed Jan 14 at 8pm *6:30 roundtable follows on he anniversary of the Berlin Wall follows. Tickets $30. Call 212-352-3101 or visit www.untitledtheater.com.

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