Sleep No More (created by Punchdrunk, a British theatrical troupe) has few words and maximal abstrac

omplete
Perhaps the most exciting trend in current theater is the strong emergence of site-specific immersive environments, audience involvement, marks spencers travel money highly dramatic movement added to music, highly skilled visceral and sometimes sexual performances, along with classical themes. Both Diane Paulus and Randy Weiner are at the center of this theatrical movement.
Randy Weiner is a producer of Sleep No More . Diane Paulus directed the revivals of Hair and The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess ( TONY winner marks spencers travel money this year for Best Revival of a Musical ) and she is the artistic director of The American Repertory Theater.
And I've been interested in talking with Diane Paulus marks spencers travel money ever since I saw the revival of Hair on Broadway, (as well as an amazing production of an opera, marks spencers travel money Haydn's Il Mondo Della Luna which she directed in the grand dome at the Hayden Planetarium! ... see below.)
I had the opportunity to meet Diane and Randy at the Music-Theatre Group (MTG) where they were making an appearance on the way to the TONY awards show. ( The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess was nominated for 10 awards, winning two, for Best Musical Revival and Best Actress in a Musical—Audra McDonald). There was not a lot of time to talk to them – I could have interviewed each of them for hours – but, happily, they also provided a lot of additional information about themselves, with insights into their work, during their appearance at MTG , nicely moderated by Thomas Schumacher (a producer, marks spencers travel money and President of the Disney Theatrical marks spencers travel money Group).
Diane was a ballet dancer and pianist. For Diane, these experiences provided a strong passion for using music and movement to create visceral marks spencers travel money theater. For Randy, Broadway was just not doing theater right; his theater-going left him with a rich background in theater, but a great interest in creating some other kind of theater.
During high school they happened to attend nearby camps in the summer, and when Randy, a runner, could not run because of an injury and decided to take part in a show at the nearby girl's camp, he met Diana, who was involved in the show. A bit more than a dozen years later they married, in 1995.
Diane went to Harvard for political science and Randy went to Harvard as a pre-med. Harvard marks spencers travel money had no drama department, but it did provide opportunities for each of them to experiment with all kinds of ad-hoc wherever-you-can-do-it marks spencers travel money theater. Randy found he preferred theater to looking at slime molds in a microscope. But, even as he moved professionally into theater, he continues to think of himself as scientific, which informs his world view and helps motivate his choices.
Diane graduated from Harvard to begin working for New York City officials, often monitoring City Council and other meetings. But she discovered she preferred the grass-roots, hands-on activities of interest groups and social marks spencers travel money work groups to the talk of the politicians.
She decided marks spencers travel money to train herself as an actress in theater. Her training marks spencers travel money was blessed. marks spencers travel money She joined the acting program of Paul Sills, George Morrison, and Mike Nichols. Then she went to the Williamstown Theater Festival as an intern, working (among other tasks) the graveyard shift pounding nails into scenery. She discovered that " The theater was joy! "
Sometimes together and sometimes separately, Randy and Diane worked at, worked in, and created all kinds of theater in all kinds of venues. Randy conceived of a disco version marks spencers travel money of Midsummer Night's Dream – which became The Donkey Show -- as a mashup of a cabaret act, a theater piece, a bar distraction, and a night at a 70's roller marks spencers travel money disco night-club. It was first staged in a rat-hole marks spencers travel money (literally, it seems) of a venue. The Donkey Show caught on right away. It has since played around the world, and can be seen on Saturday nights in Cambridge, MA at the Oberon Theater. Learning marks spencers travel money from doing, the shows provided an education in out-of-the-box theater that helped develop the strategy for producing Sleep No More . (Later, Randy developed in "THE BOX" theater – see below.)
Sleep No More (created by Punchdrunk, a British theatrical troupe) has few words and maximal abstract movement. The producers have put phenomenal resources into creating and presenting/performing the show, and none into advertising. The show itself, its creation, and its promotion are so radical that it could only be done successfully by someone who had climbed a steep ladder of development in this type of theater. It has an audience that has become a growing community. It is new-audience, audience-involved, immersive, site-specific theater.
Diane Paulus, now the artistic director of The American Repertory Theater (ART) , says the mission of ART is to expand the boundaries of theater. At ART , in addition to the shows that she has directed marks spencers travel money herself, the theater brought in Gatz , and Sleep No More to Cambridge, before they came to NY , and provided space for Once to workshop on it's way to Broadway (and to this year's TONY for Best Musical).
SLEEP NO MORE At the AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER Stephanie Eaton and Vinicius Salles A PUNCHDRUNK AND A.R.T. PRESENTATION Later, RANDY WEINER and EMURSIVE BROUGHT SLEEP NO MORE to NY Photo credit: Stephen marks spencers travel money Dobbie and Lindsay Nolin
A central core of Diane's philosophy is to create theater for the audience – for her the experience of the audience is central. Interestingly, what is most important to her about Gatz is not its unique and brilliant presentation of the story of The Great Gatsby , but its affect on the audience as a unique and brilliant theater-going expedition and experience. (FYI – a note about Gatz : An office worker in a cluttered office, picks up a copy of The Great Gatsby and starts to read it; then other office workers morph into the characters marks spencers travel money in the novel, and the entire book is read – every word, cover to cover -- and lived in a more than six-hour marathon performance with a dinner break.)
Here's Diane, in an excerpt from our interview at The Music-Theatre Group , talking about music and opera and Gatz and the audience. ( Tech Note: this was shot wild, hand-held, in a barely lit corner of the lecture room at MTG while they were setting up for the talk. The video is in 3D , shot with the HTC EVO 3D. Click on the 3D button below the image to select your preferred mode: the video can be viewed in NORMAL 2D , or with colored 3D glasses, or on an eyeglasses-free lenticular 3D screen, or -- BEST if you can do it! -- with 3D glasses on a 3D TV or computer monitor.)
Looking ahead to the next season, Diane is directing a revival of Pippin , something she has long wanted to do. The show did well in its original Bob Fosse directed 1972 Broadway version with Ben Vereen, but is better known now for less interesting subsequent revivals and amateur productions. Among the features that will energize this new production is the participation of the physical, agile troupe Les 7 doigts de la main (currently in New York with Traces ).
Marie Antoinette A world premiere by David Adjmi, marks spencers travel money (author of Elective Affinities and The Evildoers ), directed by Rebecca Taichman (Helen Hayes Award for The Clean House , Elliot Norton Award for Mauritius );
With a mission to expand the boundaries of theater, a perfectionist's desire to create visceral theater with movement and music, and superb taste, Paulus' ART is creating one of the most exciting and important theaters in the country and the world.
NY City is fortunate that some of the best shows directed by Paulus or playing at ART were created here or have come to NY -- via The Public Theater ( Hair , Gatz ), Broadway ( Hair, The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, and possibly marks spencers travel money Pippin marks spencers travel money ), and Randy ( Sleep No More ).
Diane worked with Tod Machover, (Director of the Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab ) directing his opera, Death And The Powers: The Robots' Opera. Randy co-wrote the story. marks spencers travel money Just recently, Randy worked with Tod and members of the Media Lab creating an experimental extension to Sleep No More , in which GPS and communication devices were embedded in the masks. This made it possible to communicate with actors and audience marks spencers travel money members remotely, and also to activate special effects in the rooms based on the proximity of either actors or audience marks spencers travel money members. This experiment, in augmenting the analog, live experience with computerized effects is ongoing.
Sleep No More is not especially profitable, even with a large audience and sold-out marks spencers travel money shows and alcohol sales, because marks spencers travel money of its huge cast and staff and large running costs, and relatively inexpensive tickets. But it is at the center of a portfolio of projects in development for Randy and for EMURSIVE (the company producing Sleep No More – a partnership of Randy Weiner, Jonathan Hochwald, an expert in producing large scale shows, and Arthur Karpati, an expert in real estate) based on site-specific, audience centered, innovative theater, marks spencers travel money including the possibility marks spencers travel money of projects with more cast than audience, and sponsored projects that transcend old-fashioned ideas of theater.
One once-rumored project apparently not likely soon, would be a production marks spencers travel money of Sleep No More in Las Vegas, where Randy says it would not really fit very well. (My pitch for a Vegas centered SNM type show would be an original script set either in pre-Castro Cuba or the near future, about corruption in a gambling casino, in which clues from the show would allow audience-members/players to improve their odds of winning at gambling in the casino of the story – betting, for example on "fixed" Coney Island type Steeplechase Races – while still continuing to wager (honestly!) in the games of the host casino. It would be, essentially, a story-based, live computer game. And… it could be expanded to a world-wide on line/ off line massively multiplayer computer game.)
marks spencers travel money In addition to producing Sleep No More , Randy has written marks spencers travel money and produced many other shows, including a version of Caligula at LaMaMa , and work with Cirque du Soleil . He is co-owner marks spencers travel money and a manager of THE BOX and THE BOX SOHO, very expensive, late-night clubs with ext