Export Quality/HERE – A Sign of the Times/The York Theatre Co – Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping – Alex Wyse/Picking Up Speed – EST Sloan Project
The York Theatre Company (James Morgan, Producing Artistic Director; Marie Grace LaFerrara, Executive Director) in association with Richard J. Robin, President, Wells St. Productions LLC, will present the New York premiere of A Sign of the Times, a new musical featuring the songs of Petula Clark, Lesley Gore, Dusty Springfield, and other classic pop hits of the 1960s. Book by Lindsey Hope Pearlman (Roar!, Cassandra Complex), based on an original story by Richard J. Robin, the production is directed by Gabriel Barre (Broadway: Amazing Grace; Off-Broadway: Almost Maine, The Wild Party), with music direction and orchestrations by Joseph Church (Broadway: The Lion King, In the Heights) and choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter (Broadway/London: School of Rock, London: SuperYou).
The production will play at New World Stages (340 West 50th Street), with performances starting February 7, 2024, in advance of an opening night on Thursday, February 22, 2024
Tickets go on sale on November 20, 2023 at Telecharge.com.
Acclaimed stage and screen actor and writer Alex Wyse (Summoning Sylvia, Good Night Oscar, Spring Awakening) will be debuting his original solo musical, Picking Up Speed, will play a limited one-week-only engagement at the Royal Family Performing Arts Space (145 W 46th Street) from December 6-11, 2023.
Described as a cross between a full book musical, a concert, and a storytelling event, Picking Up Speed is a humorous and affecting account of someone who loses themselves in a narcissistic relationship. It’s performed as a musical story-hour (at seventy-five minutes long) with a narrative through-line and fourteen original songs performed with a full band. Written and performed by Wyse, the musical will be directed by Marlo Hunter (Ever After, American Reject, Mystic Christmas.)
Drawn from true stories of mail-order brides from the Philippines, Export Quality will begin its limited run at HERE Arts Center (145 6th Ave, New York, NY 10013) from December 3 through December 17, 2023, opening night will be celebrated on December 7. This production is written by Erica Miguel, Carolyn Antonio, Dorotea Mendoza and directed By Sonoko Kawhara.
When survival means self-sacrifice, the only option for some women is to become a mail-order bride and marry a stranger from a foreign land. Inspired by true stories, Export Quality traces the harrowing journeys of four mail-order brides from the Philippines, as they experience hope and despair, love and loss, death and renewal. www.HERE.org
Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping has established a permanent creative home at 36 Avenue C (Loisaida Ave., corner of E. 3rd Street), where the troupe will evolve new works and perform weekly on Sundays at 3:00 PM. The location, renamed Earthchxrch, is a former bank branch (first North Fork, then Capital One) – ironic since the troupe has made headlines since 2007 by getting arrested while singing and preaching among the desks of bankers whose institutions in New York, California, England and Germany are pillars of financing for fossil fuel projects.
The next performance at Earthchxrch will be Sunday, November 19 at 3:00 as a warmup to the company’s run at Joe’s Pub November 26, December 10 and December 17, all at 6:00 PM. Joe’s Pub is located in the Public Theater at 425 Lafayette Street (Astor Place). The box office: https://publictheater.org. For more info, call (212) 967-7555.
The troupe will return to Earthchxrch in mid-January and will perform weekly there on Sundays at 3:00 PM. Admission is free; donations are accepted when the hat is passed. This event is family-friendly.
ENSEMBLE STUDIO THEATRE (EST) and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation are pleased to announce new EST/Sloan Project commissions for the 2023-2024 season. Started in 1998, the EST/Sloan Project is an initiative designed to stimulate artists to create credible and compelling work exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge the existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.
The 2023 EST/Sloan grant recipients are Brysen Boyd (POD:ORCA:POD), Will Dagger (Epitaph of Utopia), Avery Deutsch (The Age of Mary), Ryan Dowler (ROACH), Miz Hashimoto (The Bees Call Me Eva), Divya Mangwani (Indus), Laura Neill (C-WIID: A Comedy!), Juan Ramirez, Jr. (Of Great Magnitude, or The Earthquake Play), Billy Recce and Elise Wien (GUANOMANIA!: A Musical Shit Show), Liqing Xu (Untitled Epigenetics Play), and Gracie Leavitt with Media Art Xploration, Inc. (When Light Bends). There will also be a free virtual EST/Sloan Artist Cultivation Event on Monday, November 20 at 7:30 PM
