Folger Theatre Commissions Third Rail Projects For Immersive Theater Experience

Folger Theatre today announced the world premiere of Confection, an immersive theater piece imagined and performed by New York's acclaimed theater company, Third Rail Projects. Confection is conceived and written by Zach Morris, directed and choreographed by Zach Morris, with Tom Pearson and Jennine Willett, and created in collaboration with the company. The commission of Confection by Folger Theatre is in association with Before 'Farm to Table': Early Modern Foodways and Cultures, a Mellon initiative in collaborative research, convened by the Folger Institute.

This special limited production will be presented in the splendor of the Folger's Paster and Bond Reading Rooms from March 4 through 24, 2019, routinely reserved for scholars' work and not part of the Folger open to the public.

Single tickets go on sale November 13, 2018. Tickets at $40 - $60 are available online at www.folger.edu/theatre or by calling the Folger Box Office at (202) 544-7077. There is a maximum capacity of 50 audience members per performance.

Inspired by the rich collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library and by Folger Theatre's concurrent production of Nell Gwynn, Third Rail Projects' new immersive experience Confection is a rollicking rumination on opulence, inequity, and teeny-tiny desserts. Using accounts of the extravagant banquets and sumptuous feasts held by the aristocracy of the late 17th-century, the period of Nell Gwynn, as a springboard, Confection is a multi-sensory dance and theater performance that contemplates cultures of consumption and poses the questions: How much does sweetness cost and what are we willing to devour to slake our appetites?

In this 45-minute experience, audiences are granted access to the Folger's private Reading Rooms, as the performance winds its way through the striking spaces, and are invited to savor bite-sized delights by local pâtissiers.

Folger Theatre's production of Nell Gwynn is on stage January 29 through March 10, 2019. The Olivier Award-winning comedy sensation from London by Jessica Swale, commissioned by Shakespeare's Globe and produced by the Folger in its American East Coast premiere, follows an orange seller from the streets of Drury Lane as she becomes the darling of the Restoration theater-and the favorite mistress of Charles II.

Confection also runs during the exhibition First Chefs: Fame and Foodways from Britain to the Americas, on display in the Folger's Great Hall January 19 through March 31, 2019. First Chefs tells the stories of the named and unnamed heroes of early modern food culture, and juxtaposes the extravagance of an increasingly cosmopolitan and wealthy upper class against the human cost of its pleasures.

Third Rail Projects has been hailed as one of the foremost companies creating site-specific, immersive, and experiential performance. The company is led by Artistic Directors Zach Morris, Tom Pearson, and Jennine Willett, and is dedicated to re-envisioning ways in which audiences engage with contemporary performance. The company's currently running, award-winning immersive hit Then She Fell, was named as one of the "Top Ten Shows of 2012" by Ben Brantley of The New York Times and acclaimed as one of the best theater experiences of 2013 by Vogue. They have made work in New York and nationally since 2000 with projects including Ghost Light at Lincoln Center, the immersive theater hit The Grand Paradise in Brooklyn, Sweet & Lucky with Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and Learning Curve in Chicago with Albany Park Theater Project, as well as internationally through the Global Performance Studio (GPS), which combines the company's creative and educational offerings through a program of cultural listening and exchange. Third Rail Projects been the recipient of several prestigious awards, including: two New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards; a Chita Rivera Award for Choreography; several fellowship awards including two CEC Artslink Back Apartment Residencies (Russia); a Theater Fellowship from the Bogliaco Foundation (Italy); an IllumiNation Award from the Ford Foundation and National Museum of the American Indian; and more. Third Rail Projects' artistic directors were recently named among the 100 most influential people in Brooklyn culture by Brooklyn Magazine. Visit thirdrailprojects.com to learn more.

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