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PATRIOT ACT: A PUBLIC MEDITATION
an evening with
media critic and political commentator
Mark Crispin Miller
Assisted by Steve Cuiffo
Directed by Gregory Keller
Scenic
design - Narelle Sissons
Projections design - Kimberly Reed
Lighting design – Jason Lyons
Graphics design - Ken Gordon
Production coordinator - Elizabeth Miller
Facility:
New York Theatre Workshop
Facility
Address:
79 East 4th Street. Located between Bowery and Second Avenue in the
East Village.
Prices:
All tickets, $20.00
Description:
Patriot Act: a Public Meditation is not a work of theatre but a provocative,
funny, and scary exposé of threats to our American democracy
and freedom. Media critic and political commentator Mark Crispin Miller
(the author of books including "The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations
on a National Disorder" and the upcoming "Cruel and Unusual:
Bush/Cheney's New World Order") says there are powerful forces
at work in our country, including the Republican Party, Democratic Party,
Christian reconstructionists, and the federal government, that are undermining
and erasing our fundamental liberties by their relentless contempt for
democratic practice and free speech. In Patriot Act, Miller diagrams,
pulls apart, and talks audiences through a multimedia presentation of
a wealth of material drawn from official government reports, press conference
transcripts, and news service material to evidence his case. The media
only compounds the problem, according to Miller, by willfully abandoning
their constitutional freedom and not reporting the contradictions, equivocations,
and downright falsehoods uttered in interviews and press conferences,
effectively giving these groups a free ride to say or do whatever they
please. Each session of Patriot Act will be unique, as Miller constantly
combs through new material to give an up-to-the-minute portrait of what
is really going on in America, and audiences will be able to participate
in a question and answer period with Miller. Political prestigidator
Steve Cuiffo joins Mark Crispin Miller as The Assistant to provide an
entertaining blend of political observations and good, old-fashioned
sleight-of-hand magic.
Dates:
Begins Tuesday, June 22, 2004; ends Thursday, July 22, 2004.
Schedule:
Monday - Saturday, 7:30pm
Exceptions:
Saturday, July 10, additional 3:00pm performance
Saturday, July 17, additional 3:00pm performance
Running
time:
Approximately 2 hours
About
the artists:
Mark Crispin Miller is a professor of media studies at New York University.
His writings on film, television, propaganda, advertising, and rock
music have appeared in numerous journals and newspapers, including The
Nation and The New York Times. He has appeared as a commentator on programs
including "The Newshour" and "Frontline" on PBS,
Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor," NPR's "All
Things Considered," and "Morning Sedition" on the newly
launched Air America. In 1988, he published his first book, "Boxed
In: The Culture of TV," followed by "Seeing Through Movies,"
a collection which he edited for Pantheon Books in 1990. He is also
the author of "The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National
Disorder" (Norton), and "Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's
New World Order," forthcoming this summer (also from Norton). Miller
is the editor of "American Icons," a new book series from
Yale University Press, and for that series will be authoring a volume
on the Marlboro Man. Soon thereafter he will be completing "Mad
Scientists: Paranoid Delusion and the Craft of Propaganda," a study
that he has been working on for several years. Miller earned his bachelor's
degree from Northwestern University in 1971, and earned his doctorate
in English from Johns Hopkins University in 1977. Although he specialized
in Renaissance literature, Miller is best known as a media critic. Before
joining the faculty of NYU, Miller served as director of film studies
at Johns Hopkins University.
Gregory Keller directs both theatre and opera. Opera credits include:
Don Giovanni, Lulu, and Die Zauberflöte at the Metropolitan Opera.
Original productions include: L'incoronazione di Poppea in the Barns
at Wolf Trap Opera; Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King
for Eos Orchestra performed both in New York at the Ethical Culture
Society and in East Hampton's Guild Hall; La Cenerentola for the OK
Mozart Festival; Les Contes d'Hoffmann and Luisa Miller for Sarasota
Opera. Theatre works include Mark Crispin Miller's one-man political
satire, Operation American Freedom at the Cherry Lane Theater; the New
York premiere of Jean-Claude van Italie's Ancient Boys at LaMaMa E.T.C..;
Water Over Time, a one-woman show about the life of the first Italian
physicist, Laura Bassi; David Ives' Variations on the Death of Trotsky
and The Red Address at Ensemble Studio Theater. He has received grants
for his directing projects from The Howard Gilman Foundation, the Florence
Gould Foundation, the Martha Boschen Porter Fund, and the Drama League
of New York. Mr. Keller graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University.
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