KAOS

Conception, direction, choreography – Martha Clarke
Text adaptation – Frank Pugliese
Dramaturgy - Giovanni Papotto

Based on the stories of Luigi Pirandello
and the film Kaos by the Taviani Brothers

Scenic design – Scott Pask
Costume design – Donna Zakowska
Lighting design – Christopher Akerlind
Projection design – Tal Yarden
Music direction - Jill Jaffe
                  with John T. LaBarbera
Production Stage Management – Anita Ross

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Felix Blaska
Sophie Bortolussi
George de la Pena
Daria Deflorian
Vito Di Bella
Lorenzo Iacona
Jim Iorio
Gabrielle Malone
Matthew Mohr
Rocco Sisto
Cristina Spina
Rebecca Wender
Robert Wersinger
Julia Wilkins

(bios)

Musicians (in alphabetical order):
John T. La Barbera
Irving Grossman
Richard Sosinsky

Order tickets:
Single tickets on sale now.
Call Telecharge.com at 212-239-6200 or 800-432-7250 or visit www.telecharge.com
Please call our box office at 212-460-5475 for additional information.
Our box office is open Tuesday - Saturday, 1:00pm-6:00pm.

Facility Address:
79 East 4th Street, located between Bowery and Second Avenue in the East Village.

Prices:
Single tickets, $65.00 each.
CheapTix Sundays, $20.00 (all tickets for all Sunday evening performances at 7:00pm; tickets must be purchased in person, in cash at the NYTW box office).
Student tickets, $20.00 (must be purchased in person with valid student ID at the NYTW box office).

Description:
KAOS is a new theatrical work by Martha Clarke which stages parts of four Luigi Pirandello stories featured in the Taviani Brothers’ 1984 film Kaos. Set in Sicily at the dawn of the twentieth century, these stories portray common people in mystical situations, heavily influenced by poverty, violent political unrest and social changes set in motion by mass migration. Through a fusion of text, dance movement, and live music based on Sicily's historical North African roots and its evocative folk songs, Martha Clarke tells the lyrical and haunting stories of a lonely mother desperately trying to make contact with her children in America, a bride discovering that her new husband goes mad with each full moon and a clan of peasants fighting for the right to have a cemetery on the land they have cultivated for generations.

KAOS is performed in Italian with English surtitles.

KAOS production history
KAOS production photos

Dates:
First preview, Friday, November 10, 2006; opening night, Monday, December 4, 2006; final performance, Sunday, December 31, 2006.

Performance schedule:
Tuesday at 7:00pm; Wednesday – Friday at 8:00pm; Saturday at 3:00pm and 8:00pm; Sunday at 2:00pm and 7:00pm.

Exceptions:
Saturday, November 11, no 3:00pm performance
Sunday, November 12, no 2:00pm performance
Saturday, November 18, no 3:00pm performance
Monday, November 20, added performance at 8:00pm
Thursday, November 23, no performance (Thanksgiving)
Saturday, December 2, no 3:00pm performance
Monday, December 4, added performance at 7:00pm (Opening Night)
Tuesday, December 5, no performance
Saturday, December 16, no 3:00pm performance
Wednesday, December 20, added performance at 2:00pm
Sunday, December 24, no 7:00pm performance
Wednesday, December 27, added performance at 2:00pm
Sunday, December 31, no 7:00pm performance

Audience discussions:
Wednesday, November 15, 6:00pm pre-performance dialogue with Martha Clarke
Tuesday, November 21, post-performance
Wednesday, November 29, post-performance
Tuesday, December 12, post-performance

Running time:
approximately one hour and 20 minutes with no intermission

About the artists:
Martha Clarke, a founding member of Pilobolus Dance Theatre and Crowsnest, has choreographed for the Nederlans Dans Theater, the Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Rambert Dance Company and The Martha Graham Company, among many others. As a director Ms. Clarke’s many original productions include The Garden of Earthly Delights, Vienna: Lusthaus, Miracolo d’amore, Endangered Species, An Uncertain Hour, The Hunger Artist, and Vers la flamme. She directed the premiere of Christopher Hampton’s Alice’s Adventures Underground at the Royal National Theatre in London. In opera Ms. Clarke has directed The Magic Flute for the Glimmerglass Opera and the Canadian Opera Company, Cosi fan tutte for Glimmerglass, Tan Dun’s Marco Polo for the Munich Biennale, the Hong Kong Festival and the New York City Opera, and Gluck’s Orfeo and Euridice for the English National Opera and the New York City Opera. She recently directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the American Repertory Theatre and a new music/theatre work, Belle Epoque, based on the life of Toulouse Lautrec at Lincoln Center Theater. Future work includes a new collaboration with Alfred Uhry for Lincoln Center Theater. Ms. Clarke is the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” Award and grants from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation.

Frank Pugliese is a graduate of Cornell University where he won the Forbes Herman award for playwriting and was Artistic Director of the Whistling Shrimp Theatre Co. He received his MFA from the NYU Dramatic Writing Program, where he was named "Graduate Student of the Year," and was NYU's playwright in residence at the Royal Court in London. Mr. Pugliese was honored by New York University's Tisch School of the Arts fifteenth anniversary as an outstanding alumni in the field. He is a proud member of Naked Angels, Drama Dept., and is co-founder of both The Writer's Group and The Screenwriter's Collective. He is also a consultant for the Cherry Lane/Alternative Mentor program for young playwrights and currently sits on the artistic committee for Naked Angels. Mr. Pugliese teaches screenwriting and playwriting at Columbia University and in the Graduate Playwriting program at The New School. A collection of his plays was published by Broadway Play Publishing in 2001. Plays include: Aven'U Boys (Obie Award), The King of Connecticut, The Talk, The Alarm, Matty's Place, The Summer Winds, "Hope" is the Thing with Feathers and The Talk. Screenplays include: Aven' U Boys, 29th Street, Born to Run, Dion, Infamous, Shot in the Heart and Italian.

Giovanni Papotto is the author of POINTLESS (in development, in collaboration with Brian Greene, Columbia University), a play on string theory in Physics (Teatro Metastasio, Italy and Teatro Nacional, Portugal), SHOOT OUT, A EST (Teatro Mercadante, Italy), OUT OF JOINT (with Enrico Grezzi, RAI Radio 3 Italy). Also author of radiodramas and documentaries for the Italian national radio broadcaster RAI. Assistant director to Luca Ronconi for the SILENCE OF COMMUNISTS in the framework of “Domani”, the cultural Programme of the Winter Olympics in Torino 2006. Has worked as assistant director in Russia (Baltiski Dom, St. Petersburg) and Germany (Zimmertheater, Tuebingen).

    

 

Major support for the development and production of KAOS has been provided by The Tony Randall Theatrical Fund.        
http:/www.tonyrandalltheatricalfund

Special thanks to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for supporting international productions at
New York Theatre Workshop.



Travel support for KAOS has been provided by Alitalia

 

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