All Hoi Polloi photos: Ryan Jensen
ALL HANDS — Incubator Arts Project
“A creative mongrel of a show” — The New York Times
“Chunk of fun” — The New Yorker
“Theatrical magic” — Backstage
Hoi Polloi set its sights on secret societies in this collaboration with playwright Robert Quillen Camp (Chekhov Lizardbrain). Nineteen performers, helmed by Artistic Director Alec Duffy, filled the Incubator Arts Project with ritual, mystery, song and dance for this weird and wild glimpse of a group grappling with virtue, charity and how to get ahead. Composer Dave Malloy (Beowulf) provided the soundscape and Dan Safer of Witness Relocation choreographed. Set design by Mimi Lien, costume design by Jessica Pabst, lighting design by James Clotfelter and sound design by Charles Shell. The ensemble included Arthur Aulisi*, B. Brian Argotsinger*, Duane Boutte*, Marty Brown*, David Frank, Amber Gray*, Evan Greene, Matthew Lewis*, Matt Moulder Prentice Onayemi*, Jason Quarles, Nikaury Rodriguez, Joe Rosta, Stephanie Shipp, Saori Tsukada, Janice Tuchman, Ike Ufomadu, Amy Laird Webb*, Stephanie Weeks*. Stage Manager: Sean McCain. Production Manager: Peter Mills Weiss. Technical Director: Jason Craig. Graphic Design: Steven Leffue. Presented in association with Incubator Arts Project in March 2012.
SHADOWS — the Cassavetes film onstage
”(Shadows) offers audacity, invention and talent… Cassavetes would be proud.” The New York Times
FOUR STARS — “Shadows really grooves” — Time Out New York
“A little chaos doesn’t feel like a bad thing at all.” — The Village Voice
“Better than the original” — NYTheatre.com
Hoi Polloi presents the first-ever staged version of Shadows, the collaboratively-created John Cassavetes film considered a watershed in the birth of American independent cinema. Originally released in 1959, the film depicts lean and hungry artists during the Beat Generation years in New York City. The production, helmed by Alec Duffy, features a host of Off-Off Broadway heavies, with music by Rick Burkhardt of The Nonsense Company, and a cast that includes Duane Boutte, Burkhardt, Jason Craig, Paola Di Tolla, Duffy, Dustin Fontaine, Jessica Jelliffe, Mikeah Ernest Jennings and Julian Rozzell, Jr. Set design is by Andreea Mincic, costumes by Becky Lasky and lighting by Stephen Arnold. Musicians include Ezra Gale and Steven Leffue. The original production ran at the Collapsable Hole in Brooklyn October/November 2011.
****************************************************************88
THREE PIANOS
Three Pianos, the OBIE-winning hit that was originally developed through a Hoi Polloi residency at the Ontological Theater, had sold-out runs at New York Theatre Workshop and at American Repertory Theater in the past year. The show is a theatrical explosion of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle. Three friends — Rick Burkhardt, Dave Malloy and Hoi Polloi Artistic Director Alec Duffy — lead the audience through their respective passions for the piece by performing the songs, grappling with fundamental questions about the nature of music, slipping into the skins of Schubert and friends during one of their famous Schubertiads, and drinking way too much. Watch this space for info on future touring gigs…
*************************************************************************************************************
THE LESS WE TALK: A MEDITATION ON GROUP SINGING
Conceived and directed by Alec Duffy
TimeOut New York: “pitch-perfect… clever, quietly enjoyable… this is a chance to watch an already impressive director as he modulates into a higher key.”
New York Times: “An ever-shifting tableau of impressive choreography”
American folk songs are exploded and foreign languages are butchered as Hoi Polloi trains its sights on choral singing in America. A 25-person choir is at the center of The less we talk — an exploration of group singing that combines choral staples such as “Shenandoah” with the awkward moments between songs in which the members of the choir try desperately to prolong the harmony so easily won in song. Romances blossom and founder, territory is disputed, and a musical utopia is ardently sought in this radical re-imagining of how we, as Americans, come together and how we fall apart.
Original cast: Arthur Aulisi, Eliza Bent, Marty Brown, Lora Chio, Jordan Coughtry, Loren Fenton, David Frank, Evan Greene, Adia Morris, Masayasu Nakanishi, LeeAnet Noble, Sarah Petersiel, J Reese, Dan Renkin, Nikaury Rodriguez, Joseph Rosta, Annie Scott, Nisi Sturgis, Janice Tuchman, Mark Vazquez, Amy Laird Webb, Brenda Withers, Marshall York, Rasha Zamamiri
Costume design: Jessica Pabst, Scenic design: Mimi Lien, Lighting design: Miranda k Hardy, Music Director: Noah Aronson
This production was originally produced in association with the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator at the Ontological Theater at Saint Mark’s Church in April 2009.
************************************************************************
DYSPHORIA
Written and directed by Alec Duffy
New York Times: “The idea that human beings are perfectible is probably as old as the human race. But where are all those primitive feelings of anger, lust and revenge supposed to go? And do gods, gurus and self-control really work? In his satiric parable Dysphoria, Alec Duffy paints a picture on the wall of humanity’s cave, and it isn’t pretty.”
NYTheatre.com: “Alec Duffy’s new theatre piece Dysphoria is a remarkable work of theatrical imagination… It’s both entertaining and intellectually invigorating.”
Dysphoria follows five members of a religious sect as they prepare to carry out the utopian vision of their late founder. Inspired by the controversial history of the Shambhala Buddhist community, this drama depicts characters forced to reconsider their faith, their sexual mores and their future together as they build a new community.
Original cast: Nisi Sturgis, Amy Laird Webb, David Frank, Masayasu Nakanishi, Marshall York
Costume Design: Jessica Pabst, Scenic design: Justin Townsend, Lighting design: Miranda k Hardy, Composer: Dave Malloy
This production was originally produced in association with the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator at the Ontological Theater at Saint Mark’s Church in August 2007.
**************************************************************************
SUZAN-LORI PARKS IN GARDENS
In conjunction with the Public Theater’s 365 Days/365 Plays Festival, Hoi Polloi presented seven short plays of Suzan-Lori Parks’ in community gardens in the West Bronx, Jamaica Queens and East Harlem, as well as at the Public Theater in the summer of 2007.
Original cast: Lora Chio, LeeAnet Noble, Nikaury Rodriguez, Erwin Thomas, Marshall York
Costume design: Becky Lasky, Original music by Michael Wimberly
**************************************************************************
PRE-HOI POLLOI:
THE TOP TEN PEOPLE OF THE MILLENNIUM SING THEIR FAVORITE SCHUBERT LIEDER
Photo: Brian Lilienthal
Written and directed by Alec Duffy
The New York Times: “Hilariously twisted… uncommonly entertaining”
NYTheatre.com: ”It’s as rich, full, and intoxicating an experience as a theatre-lover could hope for.”
An absurd, hilarious and dark look at the forces that have shaped the last 1000 years. Combining the visceral and the hysterically heady, The Top Ten People… explodes the last millennium, leaving a stage littered with the detritus of colonialism, empiricism and the loss of innocence; Einstein, Marx, Galileo and others gather in a salon-like setting, where they argue over timeless themes of truth and beauty and sing the beguiling songs of Schubert.
Original cast: Arthur Aulisi, Barnaby Carpenter, Eugene Rohrer, David Schreiner, Amy Laird Webb
Costume Design: Jessica Jelliffe, Scenic design: Justin Townsend, Lighting design: Miranda k Hardy
The Top Ten People… was presented in 2005 at the Bank Street Theatre in New York and at the Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago and was published in the volume Plays and Playwrights 2006, edited by Martin Denton.
