Saturday, July 13, 2013

Beertown Heads to NYC January 2014


From our friends at dog and pony dc...

Beertown
New York City performances, January 2014

Washington, DC. July 2013. dog & pony dc announces an upcoming 3 week run of their devised play, Beertown, at the 59E59 Theaters in New York City in January and February of 2014.

Beertown, which was created by an ensemble of 17 theatre artists and had two runs in Washington, DC in 2011 and 2012, will perform at the 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, New York, NY 10022) January 30–February 16, 2014. The production garnered critical acclaim and a 2011 Helen Hayes award nomination for the Charles McArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical. It is the first ever ensemble-devised show to receive this nomination.

Beertown premiered in November 2011 to a charmed Washington, DC audience and its 2012 re-mount made the Washington Post’s Top 10 shows list. Beertown is an interactive exploration of history, civic ritual, identity, community, and memory that incorporates live music, dance, group song... and a dessert potluck. Part-civic ceremony, part-theatrical pageant, the show welcomes audiences into the 20th Beertown Time Capsule Day celebration, where every five years the imagined small American town unearths its beloved Time Capsule and ritualistically reviews its contents. Following dog & pony dc’s mission to integrate audiences into the action of the play, the ceremony engages audience as town citizens, leading the debate and voting on the contents of the time capsule.

Beertown continues to include a number of social media components to allow for audience integration outside the theatre walls, leading with the town's website: visitbeertown.com.

The New York booking is dog & pony dc’s first out of town performance of Beertown. dog & pony dc will perform Beertown at Round House Theatre Silver Spring in October 2013 before traveling to New York in January 2014.
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BEERTOWN

Devised by dog & pony dc

CREATIVE TEAM:
Directed by Rachel Grossman
Set and Lights: Colin K. Bills
Costumes: Ivania Stack
Graphic Artist: Kate Loveric

CAST:
Wyckham Avery, Joshua Drew, Max Freedman, Rachel Grossman, Colin Hovde, Elaine Yuko Qualter, J. Argyl Plath, Jon Reynolds, Yasmin Tuazon

MORE INFORMATION: dogandponydc.com. To learn more about the imaginary town of Beertown, visit visitbeertown.com.

ABOUT dog & pony:
dc dog & pony dc is an ensemble-based devised theatre company focused on providing audiences new ways to experience theatre. The company creates (“devises”) new plays as a collective (“ensemble”). Whether it’s an ultra-violent live-action version of the Punch and Judy puppet show, or an imagined civic ceremony that incites community debate about a time capsule’s content, dog & pony dc shows playfully explore the elastic relationship between artist and audience. dog & pony dc has been recognized as the “upstart company” blazing a new path for audience engagement in performance. The company was highlighted in Washington Post as one of the local companies working on “broadening playgoers’ understanding of the riddles theater can unravel.” A Killing Game was presented at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival in May and June of 2013, garnering the Dr. Robert J. Thierauf Producers' Pick of the Fringe award and a festival award for Best Use of Improvisation & Audience Participation from the League of Cincinnati Theatres. dog & pony dc has presented about it’s work locally (Shakespeare Theatre, Capital Fringe) and nationally (Theatre Communications Group, Animating Democracy, Assoc. for Theater in Higher Education). The company is included in American Theatre magazine’s July 2013 cover-story on immersive theatre.

ABOUT 59E59 Theaters:
The Drama Desk Award winning 59E59 Theaters presents Off Broadway productions by not- for-profit companies from across the United States and around the world, including an annual festival of new British theater called Brits Off Broadway and a preview of shows going to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe called East to Edinburgh.

Owned and operated by the Elysabeth Kleinhans Theatrical Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation, 59E59 Theaters brings new, innovative and invigorating work to East Side audiences.