Projects In Development
Stuck Elevator
music by Byron Au Yong
libretto by Aaron Jafferis
directed by Chay Yew
"…a multi-layered musing on undocumented aliens, cultural identity, individuality, fear of oppression and the traps and boxes we construct for our own feelings. There’s desperation and loneliness and horror in the delivery-person’s plight. But there’s humor too."
-Chistopher Arnott, New Haven Advocate
Stuck Elevator is a comic-rap-scrap-metal-opera that finds an undocumented immigrant from China suspended between the upward mobility of the American dream and the downward plunge into an empty abyss. This music-theater hybrid tells the story of Guang, a Chinese food deliveryman struggling for freedom from debt, human smugglers, loud-mouthed co-workers and the temptations of General Tso.
The work features the contributions of avant/classical/folk composer Byron Au Yong, hip-hop playwright Aaron Jafferis and OBIE award-winning director Chay Yew, unique collaborators who are comfortable in theater, music and site-specific venues.
A violinist, cellist, scrap metal percussionist and rapper create the mongrel sound of Guang’s world: part American, part Chinese, part Bronx, part shipping container, part heart, part elevator. Bowed bicycle wheels evoke the ominous sounds of the elevator and other prisons Guang hallucinates. Lyrical melodies – mostly in English, some in Mandarin – propel the audience through Guang’s story. Though one actor plays Guang throughout his solo ordeal, musicians manifest characters from Guang’s memories, dreams and imaginings.
In the middle of a recession, when the lives of undocumented immigrants are overshadowed by unemployment statistics, Stuck Elevator focuses on a heroism that happens day to day and dollar to dollar. The themes surrounding Guang’s story propel the music: being stuck physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, legally and linguistically. His questions go from practical to existential, from "Where do I pee?" to "What is the meaning of life?" Stuck Elevator finds the immigration debate within a 4' x 6' x 8' metal box and a single human body.
click to LISTEN to a selected tracks from the score
Elsewhere
a new celloOpera created by renowned cellist Maya Beiser and acclaimed director Robert Woodruff
featuring Maya Beiser and vocalist Helga Davis
composed by Eve Beglarian, Michael Gordon, and Missy Mazzoli
choreography by Karole Armitage
set design by Riccardo Hernandez
video design by Peter Nigrini
texts by Erin Cressida Wilson and Henri Michaux
From what began as a unique collaboration between cellist Maya Beiser (hailed "the cello goddess" by The New Yorker) and theatre director Robert Woodruff (called "the country's most adventurous director" by Time Out New York) comes ELSEWHERE, a new CelloOpera by Maya Beiser with vocalist Helga Davis. A triptych of daring compositions by Eve Beglarian, Michael Gordon and Missy Mazzoli, ELSEWHERE is an imaginative and psychological retelling of the biblical story of Lot's wife.
A sweeping assemblage of video designed by Peter Nigrini, choreography by Karole Armitage, environments designed by Riccardo Hernandez, and amplified, distorted and acoustic cello in tandem with spoken and sung texts by Erin Cressida Wilson and Henri Michaux, ELSEWHERE is an urgent dialogue between two female diviners communicating from opposite poles in time, ancient and modern, catastrophic and calm, both at the brink of apocalypse and non-existence.
"The cello goddess" -The New Yorker (about Maya Beiser)
"Vision is perfectly realized by director Robert Woodruff" -Time Out New York
"...a humane, idealistic rebel and a musical sensualist" -LA Times (about Eve Beglerian)
"...the fury of punk rock, the nervous brilliance of free jazz and the intransigence of classical modernism." -The New Yorker (about Michael Gordon)
"Brooklyn's post-millenial Mozart" -Time Out New York (about Missy Mazzoli)
"At last a feminist—or a post-feminist, as Wilson has been described—with the nerve and talent to challenge the orthodoxies of power and powerlessness that have too often locked feminism into a Manichaean view of gender relations." -Molly Haskell, film critic
Download an informational packet about the project HERE.
JOIN US FOR A SPECIAL EVENING OF MUSIC AND MERRIMENT BENEFITTING ELSEWHERE! On Thursday February 9th at 7:30 join us for drinks, hors d'oeuvres, desserts, and a special intimate performance with ELSEWHERE's very own Maya Beiser. For more information, and to RSVP, write to elsewherecelloopera@gmail.com. Tickets are $500 each. To purchase, use the webform via the button below.
Persona
- Music by Keeril Makan
- Libretto adapted by Jay Scheib
- Developed with new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound
- directed and adapted by JAY SCHEIB
- from the screenplay by INGMAR BERGMAN
PERSONA is a provocative, highly cerebral, and artistically complex depiction of human frailty, cruelty, and identity. Composed by Rome Prize Winner, Keeril Makan with libretto and direction by Jay Scheib, who was named by American Theater Magazine as one of the "top 25 directors likely to shape American performance over the next twenty-five years, " the project is being developed with reigning new music ensemble, Alarm Will Sound. Workshop supported by the New York City Cultural Innovation Fund, an initiative of The Rockefeller Foundation. An Alarm Will Sound and Beth Morrison Projects co-production.
“[Keeril Makan] is a fascinating wedding of intellect and expressivity.” – Newsday
Music Workshop
with Alarm Will Sound
New York, NY
March 13−December 14, 2012
Dog Days
Robert Woodruff, director
Judy Budnitz, story
Dog Days is an in-progress work of contemporary music-theatre from celebrated composer David T. Little that incorporates elements of opera, musical theatre, and rock-infused-concert music, to investigate the psychology of a working class American family pitted against a not-so-distant-future wartime scenario. Created in collaboration with librettist Royce Vavrek, this black comedy asks: is it madness, delusion, or sheer animal instinct that guides us through severely trying times? Where lies the line between animal and human, and at what point must we give in to our animal instincts merely to survive?
"...every bad ass new-music ensemble in the city will want to play him." -The New Yorker (about David T. Little)
"...incontestably a sensational force... not only extreme virtuosity, but powerful ideas about how to renovate the concert experience." (The New Yorker about Alan Pierson)
"...wildly dramatic" and "exhilarating" -The New York Times (about Royce Vavrek)
Il Volo
composed by ANTONIO VIVALDI
concept by PAVEL SCHINDLER
a new book by MATT BORESI
directed by ANDREW EGGERT
IL VOLO, or "The Flight," dramatizes the rash, raucous and under-represented side of the Vivaldi canon, by elevating a contemporary vision of the spirit of the Italian Carnevale in an emotionally charged tale driven by historical mystery.
Music Workshop
New York, NY
September 26−30, 2011
a BMP World Premiere
Upcoming 2012−2013 season
Labyrinth
composed by Paola Prestini
in collaboration with visual artist Erika Harrsch
with video design by Ed Purver
featuring cellist Maya Beiser
Labyrinth is a multimedia adaptation of Octavio Paz's "The Labyrinth of Solitude," a poetic journey in search of self-knowledge, subjective consciousness, the recognition of otherness, and the constant state of longing and desire for teh other to fill up the void of existence. Visuals designed by Erika Harrsch. Featuring violinist Cornelius Dufallo, and cellist Maya Beiser.
click here for more information
click here to listen to an excerpt
An Aging Magician
composed by Paola Prestini
stage direction and scenic design by Julian Crouch
performed by ETHEL, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Gabriel Kahane, John Buffalo Mailer, and starring Rinde Eckert
with video and projection design by S. Katy Tucker
featuring a specially installed instrument designed by Mark Stewart
An Aging Magician is a multimedia work for narrator, voice, chamber orchestra, and electronics using text by Jonathan Safran Foer, which tells the story of an aging clown on his way to another world. Featured performers include Rinder Eckert, Gabriel Kahane, Melvin van Peebles, and the NY based ACME ensemble. With video design by S. Katy Tucker. For more photos, videos and information click here.
April 7 2011 at the 21c Liederabend, op. 2 at The Kitchen - watch the performance
May 2012 at the Southern Theatre, Minneapolis, MN
