Artists Rep's new Frontier Series Continues with WINNERS AND LOSERS

Artists Repertory Theatre presents Winners and Losers written and performed by acclaimed Canadian performance artists, Marcus Youssef and James Long, directed by Chris Abraham. Part of Artists Rep's FRONTIER SERIES and produced by Theatre Replacement and Neworld Theatre in association with Crow's Theatre, Winners and Losers will run for four performances, March 24 through March 26, 2017.

Winners and Losers is a staged conversation performance piece in which theatre artists and long-time friends, Marcus Youssef and James Long, sit at a table and play a game they made up called 'winners and losers'. In it, they name people, places or things - Tom Cruise, their fathers, rainforests, druids, etc. - and debate whether these things are winners or losers. Is Joe Biden a loser? Is Kanye West a winner? What about microwave ovens, Goldman Sachs or Mexico? With debate subjects updated for every city, what starts out as a friendly competition between friends quickly becomes personal as they unpack layers of privilege, class and status each seeking to defeat the other.

"Winners and Losers has been a crowd favorite across the world." said Frontier Series curator, Jerry Tischleder. "It digs into our growing culture of quick takes and snap judgments in a way that is both hilarious and provocative. Marcus and James are two of Canada's finest theatre makers and I'm incredibly proud that Artists Rep is bringing them to Portland."

Winners and Losers been performed throughout Canada and widely throughout Europe. In the U.S., the show has been presented at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Soho Rep and On the Boards.

Neworld Theatre writes this about Winners and Losers:
"In 2011, Marcus (Youssef of Neworld Theatre) and James Long of Theatre Replacement were making a play - a Kafka-esque thing about two office workers. To warm up they played a game called 'winners and losers': name a person, place or thing and debated whether it's a winner or a loser. They also made long lists of various skills or attributes (parenting, wrestling, cooking, ping pong, etc.) and debated who was better at them. They recorded and transcribed it all, and when they read it back, they realized the games were better and more dangerous than the play they were writing. Because the game was real.

Less than 5 years later, Winners and Losers has had over 100 performances in 17 cities. The play has been published by Talonbooks, filmed live and streamed online by On The Boards TV, and been seen by thousands of theatre-goers around the world. Through it all, we've collaborated with our good friends at Theatre Replacement. Which is ironic, in a way. It's a show about competition and the destructive impact of capitalism and privilege on our most intimate relationships. And we created and produced in the most collaborative, mutually supportive way we can imagine. And yes, they're still friends. Maybe it doesn't get any more real than that."

Buy Tickets: 503.241.1278 or www.artistsrep.org

To post a comment, you must register and login.