The Aristophanic Laboratory

October 31 – November 17, 2007
@ HERE Arts Center

Featured performances:

Knights
Adapted by Rob Handel
Directed by Alice Reagan
Aristophanes seems to have lost his theatrical marbles. His new play is entirely devoted to the vilification of the most powerful politician in Athens. The actors and mask-makers fear for their jobs. Can the playwright be talked out of his obsession? A cautionary tale revealing the prehistory of new play development.

The Archarnians (excerpt)
Directed by Kristin Marting
Terrorism. Pacifism. Patriotism. Nationalism. Commercialism. Experience an Ancient Greek’s take on today’s hot button issues.

Big Poppa Can’t See
Created by William Burke & Glennis McMurray
Words. Money. Blindness. Toilet. Gods. Bling. Crapper. Cash. Spit. Plutus. Scratch. Shitter. Bling. Cabbage? Loo. Cheeseburger. Revolution Extravaganza!

Founding Asylum
A tabletop theater by Kathleen Kennedy Tobin
Membra Disiecta: Fragments of the Lost Plays.

The Very Worst Argument
Conceived by Diana Konopka, Matthew McAlpin, Sherrine Azab, Judith M. Smith & Keith Larson
A Comedy of money, lies, disputation and rhetoric. (An abrigded translation of The Clouds).

Wasps; or, Buzz Buzz in Your Eardrum
Written by Ken Urban
Directed by Jose Zayas
Bedazzler has a plan to stop her dad Phil’s addiction to jury duty, involving a german shepherd and a vet in a bee costume. An irreverent riff on The Wasps.

Are You a Bird or a Dodo? or, Artisophanes’ Birds.
Directed by Jessica Brater
Augur buzzards. Fiscal shrikes. Skulkers, coots, pied kingfishers. Bird-human hybrids. Does the bird you are watching perch in prominent positions and on vantage points such as telegraph poles and wires? Or is it part of an army of hawks at war with the Olympian gods over eminent domain? Welcome to Cloudcuckooland, founded by Athenian ex-pats and ruled by bird brains. Not exactly what the Audobon Society had in mind.

Balabustas!
A (queer yiddishkeit) THESMOPHORIAZUSAE
Directed by Michael Levinton
I’ll never forget it, you know – Euripides – the cockiest bastard in the art world – has got a problem that he can’t be bothered to deal with himself. Instead, he calls in some very special favors with various mixed results: Old Men in drag, gay baiting, woman bashing, theatre in 3 syllables, religious mockery, choral outrage, singing girls and enormous phalli. Isn’t that easier than just dealing with your shit!?

The Name Means Public Spirited, Or, All Those Other Things
A (Very) Loose Adaptation of Ecclesiazusae
Written by Mallery Avidon
Directed by Jake Hooker
A comedy (?) about politics, sex, and food.

Fuck! War! or Come Victory Come!
By F. Wolf Molitch
Directed by Sherrine Azab
The writer battles with the meat of Lysistrata. How sexy can anti-war be?

Peace
A Trim Musical Head-dive

Created by Rachel Chavkin & Taylor Mac
Composed by Stephanie Johnstone
The writer battles with the meat of Lysistrata. How sexy can anti-war be?

Someone Told Me It Brings Good Luck
Directed by Anna Brenner
Designed by Ásta Bennie Hostetter
City life blows. Want to just fly away? A new world awaits you with people dressed up in costumes like birds on a video in a bathroom.