Theatre Is Dead and So Are You

Seems sour and awfully bitter, doesn't it? That's not me talking -- that's the title of the newest piece from one of my favorite groups -- the Stolen Chair Theatre Company.

(Jon Stancato, the artistic director, is almost certain to email me now and say "one of your favorite groups?" but I really can't play too much in the way of favorites because I don't trust any of those theatre sons-of-bitches in a dark alley, nuh-uh, especially those Off-Off-Broadway give-us-money-or-we'll kill-you types. Why else was one of my favorite Stolen Chair productions called Kill Me Like You Mean It?)

Anyway, here below for your delectation and kind consideration is the press release. And GO! Go NOW!

And by the way, you can get $12 tickets if you use the code FIRST2 and mention this blog.

So what good is sitting alone in your room, playing with yourself?

Theatre Is Dead and So Are You people. Now, GO!:

Stolen Chair launches its 7th season with the premiere of its 12th original work, a vaudevillian take on mortality that stares death in the face and laughs.



Theatre Is Dead and So Are You

The Stolen Chair Theatre Company wakes the dead in Kiran Rikhye’s latest "unholy hybrid," Theatre Is Dead and So Are You. Directed by Jon Stancato, previews begin January 9 at the Connelly Theatre. Opening night set for January 15.

Theatre is Dead and So Are You is an irreverent funeral for the stage. A ragtag bunch of variety hacks are laying their sometimes beloved MC to rest, performing his funeral live, travelling from city to city, until such time as his body is too decomposed to make the proceedings pleasant. Their "eulogies" are performed à la classic variety, with slapstick, melodrama, song & dance, and feats of illusion and mentalism, each taking its own deadly turn as they celebrate the life and death of their dearly departed dead dead dead friend. Even in their joyous performance, a spectre looms as each knows they've all been exposed to the fatal disease that killed their MC: Life. Watch these seasoned has-beens kill theatre, live before your very eyes.

The production stars returning Stolen Chair veterans David Bengali, David Berent, Rainbow Dickerson, Tommy Dickie, Liza Wade Green, Noah Schultz, David Skeist and Alexia Vernon, with sets and lighting by David Bengali and costumes by Julie Schworm, and live music by Raphael Biran and Emily Otto. The production was made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Chosen as "Best of Manhattan 2007" by New York Press, The Stolen Chair Theatre Company is a critically-acclaimed award-winning collaborative theatre laboratory dedicated to the theft, recycling and re-examination of historical performance styles, and to the creation of visually stunning and uniquely contemporary work where the earnest and ironic happily co-exist. Since its inception in 2002, Stolen Chair has created 12 critically-acclaimed original works including the absurdist noir Kill Me Like You Mean It and the Weimar child’s-play cabaret Kinderspiel, both published by United Stages. Their 2005 silent film for the stage, The Man Who Laughs,was published in the anthology Playing With Canons: Explosive New Works from Great Literature by America's Indie Playwrights.

Theatre Is Dead and So Are You runs Jan 9 - Jan 31, Thursday - Saturday at 8pm. The Connelly Theater is located at 220 East 4th Street, accessible from the F at 2nd Ave-Houston St or the 6 at Bleeker. Free wine at all performances.

Tickets are $18, available at 212-868-4444 or http://www.theatreisdead.com/.

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