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Select a show: TJ & Dave I Two Men Talking I What's My Line? - Live On Stage I How Theater Failed America
How Theater Failed America
Performance Schedule
Performances Begin May 16th!
Fridays @ 7:30PM
Saturdays @ 7:30PM
Sundays @ 7PM
Running Time: 90 minutes
About the Show
Mike Daisey, called "the master storyteller...one of the finest solo performers of his generation" by the New York Times, sinks his razor- sharp wit into a subject he knows well: the American theater. From gorgeous new theaters standing empty as cathedrals, to "successful" working actors traveling like migrant farmhands, to an arts culture unwilling to speak or listen to its own nation, Daisey takes stock of the dystopian state of theater in America: a shrinking world with smaller audiences every year. Each Sunday, a roundtable forum with theater luminaries including Robert Brustein, Gregory Mosher, Jim Nikola and Oskar Eustis will follow the performance.Roundtable Schedule
DOWNTOWN, MIDTOWN, EVERYTOWN
Sun May 18th:
Robert Brustein (Founder of Yale Repertory Theatre and American Repertory Theatre)
Gideon Lester (Artistic Director, American Repertory Theatre)
Jonathan West (Milwaukee based actor and blogger)
Emily Ackerman (Actor and ensemble member of The Civilians)
Leonard Jacobs (National editor for Back Stage)
Sheila Callaghan (Playwright, DEAD CITY)
DO-IT-YOURSELF OR BUST
Sat May 24th:
Greg Kotis (Playwright, URINETOWN)
Jason Eagan (Artistic Director, Ars Nova)
Erez Ziv (Managing Dirctor, Horse Trade Theater)
John Clancy (Founder of the New York International Fringe Festival)
Scott Shepherd (The Wooster Group)
Lisa Kron (Actor, solo performer and playwright, WELL)
YOU ARE WHAT YOU WATCH
Sun June 1st:
Jim Nicola (Artistic Director for New York Theatre Workshop)
Mark Russell (Founder of PS122 and the Under The Radar Festival)
Steve Bodow (Head writer of the Daily Show and Elevator Repair Service member)
Morgan Jenness (Literary agent, former literary manager of the Public Theater)
David Cote (Theatre editor for Time Out New York)
Isaac Butler (Freelance director and theatre blogger)
FOR PROFIT, NON-PROFIT, NO PROFIT
Sun June 8th:
James Bundy (Dean of the Yale School of Drama, AD of Yale Repertory Theatre)
Dan Fields (Disney imagineer and freelance director)
Stephanie Weisman (Founder and Director of The Marsh in San Francisco)
Dave Greenham (Executive Director, The Theatre at Monmouth)
Tommy Thompson (veteran Broadway production stage manager)
Maria Dizzia (Actor, EURYDICE)
ASSEMBLING ENSEMBLES
Sun June 15th:
John Collins (Artistic Director of Elevator Repair Service, THE SOUND AND THE FURY)
Tanya Selvararnam (Actor and collaborator with Jay Scheib and The Builder's Association)
Colleen Werthmann (Actor and Elevator Repair Service ensemble member)
Heidi Schreck (Actor and collaborator with 2-Headed Calf, Seattle's Printer's Devil)
Scott Walters (former AD of Illinois Shakespeare Festival and blogger) Hal Brooks (Freelance director, THOM PAINE and NO CHILD)
THEATER IN 2033
Sun June 22nd:
Rocco Landesman (Tony-award winning producer, ANGELS IN AMERICA, THE PRODUCERS)
Gregory Mosher (Tony-award winning director, former head of Lincoln Center)
Oskar Eustis (Artistic Director of the Public Theater)
Richard Nelson (Playwright, CONVERSATIONS IN TUSCULUM)
Paige Evans (Director, Lincoln Center's new LCT3 program)
Garrett Eisler (Village Voice theater critic and blogger)
Tickets
To purchase tickets visit the Telecharge Website or call (212) 239-6200, or visit the Barrow Street Theatre Box Office.
Press
The Need to Think Onstage Is Driving Mr. Daisey, NY Times.comHow Theater Failed America, Variety.com
Reviews
"A sardonic rebuke to the corporate types who hold American theater hostage...a powerful sense of the wonder of theater. A remarkable performer."
- New York Times
"Blending political anger with striking personal stories, this piece should reach anyone who believes in live performance."
-Variety
"Daisey is a working man's Spalding Gray: boyish passion meshed with refined contemplation...not only vastly entertaining, it's also a call to action."
- Time Out New York
"It's an exhilarating show, as Daisey deftly coaxes the room from raucous laughter to hushed contemplation...Daisey has a knack for disarming his audience with an approachable persona, incandescent wit and a gift for virtuoso storytelling. "
- Gothamist
"Pungent, profane and hilarious...Daisey can evoke the thrill and absurdity of theatrical passion with the surreal bravado of a modern-day Swift. "
- Seattle Times
"…No matter how much vitriol is spilled, Daisey can do so without raising rancor in the hearts of his targets...How Theater Failed America sounds like career suicide. But if anyone can pull it off, it will be Mike Daisey. "
- Seattle Weekly
"…As a theatre artist whose work demonstrates one way in which the theatre has a unique power to criticize the culture at large, he's uniquely positioned to offer a devastating criticism. "
- Seattlest
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