| “AMM(I)GONE” TO HAVE ITS NEW YORK PREMIERE AT THE FLEA THIS MARCH | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 10:13 am EST 01/11/25 | |
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| PLAYCO, WOOLLY MAMMOTH THEATRE, THE FLEA, AND KELLY STRAYHORN THEATER PRESENT THE NEW YORK PREMIERE OF “AMM(I)GONE” CREATED, CO-DIRECTED AND PERFORMED BY ADIL MANSOOR AND CO-DIRECTED BY LYAM B. GABEL THURSDAY, MARCH 13 – MONDAY, APRIL 7 AT THE FLEA PlayCo, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, The Flea, and Kelly Strayhorn Theater announced the New York premiere of AMMIGONE, stylized as Amm(i)gone, created, co-directed, and performed by Adil Mansoor and co-directed by Lyam B. Gabel. Amm(i)gone will take place from Thursday, March 13 – Monday, April 7 at The Flea (20 Thomas St, New York). In this theatrical experiment, Mansoor creates a warm, intimate, and vulnerable interaction with his audience as he shares the ongoing story of how he and his mother are working to restore their bond. Adil Mansoor is a Virgo Pakistani-American theater queerdo. His mother is an Aquarian hijabi Quranic scholar. Since she discovered Adil's queerness online, their once-close bond now needs rescue. In Amm(i)gone, a portmanteau of “ammi” (“mother” in Urdu) and the Greek heroine Antigone, Mansoor invites us on a journey of heartbreak and repair between mother and son as they embark on an examination and translation of Sophocles' Antigone into Urdu. Passionately mining Greek tragedy, Islam, and their own memories, they seek to recover their love across faith. PlayCo first encountered Amm(i)gone after Associate Director for Artistic Programming Annie Jin Wang and Executive Producer Robert G. Bradshaw saw an early version in Pittsburgh in 2022. Maria Goyanes, Artistic Director of Woolly Mammoth Theatre, invited PlayCo Founding Producer Kate Loewald to see their production in April 2024. Loewald said, “We all became super-fans of Adil, getting to know him after Annie and Rob saw the show early on, and then I was able to see a later version at Woolly and became just as much of a super-fan of this play as Annie was. Its many layers of language—both as a core theme and in practice in the languages spoken in the play—and Adil's intimate relationship with those witnessing it, are so in keeping with what PlayCo strives to offer audiences.” Amm(i)gone brings friends Loewald and Goyanes back into partnership (following their co-commission and presentation of Amir Nizar Zuabi's This Is Who I Am in 2020/21) to give the play a New York premiere. PlayCo has also joined Woolly to co-produce the production's tour to other cities, such as New Haven, where the show ran at Long Wharf Theatre immediately following its Woolly run. Loewald likewise reached out to The Flea's Artistic Director Niegel Smith to invite a partnership for the New York production. Smith and The Flea were already excited about Amm(i)gone, and stepped in to co-produce the work in their space. The Flea Artistic Director Niegel Smith says, “We were lucky enough to get to know the work before it headed off to Woolly, and were so thrilled that Kate was partnering with Maria to take its trajectory further. It's so perfect for us, for our aesthetic, for our commitment to Black, brown and queer experimental artists and for our audience.” Amm(i)gone began germinating one day when Mansoor was speaking on the phone with his mother—about one of many topics he usually avoided with her: theater. He mentioned he was reading Antigone; the play struck a chord and she expressed a rare interest, asking question after question. Says Mansoor, “I've committed my life to making and teaching art with my community — but I've never brought my mom into that process, and realized that perhaps she felt excluded” he explains. “And here was a play she was excited about.” The classic resonated with aspects of Mansoor's own perception of his mother as self-sacrificing and devoted to what she believes to be right — as a social worker, a Sunday school teacher, a single mother, and a hijabi. Soon, he asked his mother to adapt Sophocles' tragedy with him. That act would be, as Mansoor describes, an “apology to and from” her after she discovered his queerness via Google and began “praying sunset to sunrise to save [him] in the afterlife.” Says Mansoor, “In an attempt to connect with my mom and do the thing that makes me feel the most alive, I asked her to make a play with me. I asked her to adapt Antigone, this play about the afterlife and God and loving your family so hard that it could break you, and have her filter it through her lens as a hijabi Muslim woman. I had imagined we'd end up with a script for actors and set design—that was my thesis pitch in graduate school. But it was never interesting to see it on other bodies. What was always the most powerful was my mom's voice. How she talks about Ismene, how she understands the world, the dramaturgy of this. Quickly, it became very clear the play was for me and my mom.” As the production unfolds, it reveals photos and artifacts from Mansoor's childhood, videos of productions of Antigone from across the globe, and audio recordings of his mother. Director Lyam B. Gabel says, “Through this rigorously intimate conversation between Adil and his mother, we're also creating a rigorously intimate conversation between Adil and the audience.” COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PROGRAMMING Join us for a wide-ranging series of Idea Lab community offerings that uplift the themes and questions from our production of Amm(i)gone. Curated with our artists and community partners, these events invite YOU to gather with us, celebrate life, and get to talking. · Friday March 14th Post Show Conversation facilitated by playwright Fatima A. Maan · Saturday March 15th AuntieSocial with LAWHORE VAGISTAN. A daytime talk show. But at night. Revolutionary! · TBD TheatreMakers Night · Saturday March 22nd Third Culture Kid & Global Majority Night · Thursday April 3rd - Eid al-Fitr Night Because this production occurs during Ramadan, throughout the show's run, there is a prayer room, open to all who seek a space for reflection or prayer before the performance. This year's community nights are proudly sponsored by LUNAR, an AAPI-owned craft hard seltzer made with real Asian fruits. PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE AND TICKETING Performances begin March 13, 2025 and run through April 7, 2025 at The Flea (20 Thomas Street, New York, NY): Mondays & Thursdays at 7PM; Fridays & Saturdays at 8PM; and Sundays at 3PM. Running time is 90 minutes. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased here. PlayCo and The Flea are committed to affordable access for all. Audience members are encouraged to pick the admission price that best suits their capacity: · Theatre For Everyone (TFE), $10: PlayCo created its TFE program in 2017, to welcome audience members for whom access to the theatre has not historically been guaranteed, whether due to financial barriers or cultural exclusion. The Flea joins PlayCo in offering a block of TFE tickets at each performance throughout the run of the show with no time limit for purchase . · General Admission, $30: General Admission tickets are calibrated to be at an accessible rate for most theatergoers, and the price includes a $3 processing fee which helps underwrite the TFE tickets. · Pay-It-Forward, $65: Purchasing tickets at this rate helps PlayCo & The Flea continue to prioritize equity and inclusion in our ticketing model. The cost includes a $5 processing fee which helps underwrite the TFE tickets. · True Value, $100: This price reflects the true cost of a seat in a financial model that would enable recoupment of the direct production costs. The price includes a $9 processing fee which helps underwrite TFE tickets. ABOUT ADIL MANSOOR Adil Mansoor (Creator, Co-Director, Performer) is a director centering queer folks and people of color. He has developed new work with The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, Sundance, Playwrights' Center, Mercury Store, The Playwrights Realm, Pittsburgh Public Theater, and others. Directing projects include Daddies by Paul Kruse (Audible), Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Hatch Arts Collective), and Kentucky by Leah Nanako Winkler (Pittsburgh Playhouse). He is a founding member of Pittsburgh's Hatch Arts Collective and the former Artistic Director of Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQA+ youth arts organization. He is an NYTW Usual Suspect and former Sundance Art of Practice Fellow. He was part of the inaugural Artist Caucus gathered by Baltimore Center Stage, Long Wharf, St. Louis Rep, and Woolly Mammoth. Mansoor received the Emerging Artist Carol R. Brown Award in 2024. He holds an MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University. https://www.adilmansoor.com/ ABOUT LYAM B. GABEL Lyam B. Gabel (Co-Director) is a trans* performance-maker and community archivist. He lives between the mountains of Eastern PA and NYC. They are making DADDY, a performance and public health resource about transmasculine pregnancy. Their work, the dance floor, the hospital room, and the kitchen table made from 32 interviews exploring queer care received a NPN commission, was shown at the TCG meeting in 2022, and was exhibited at the Prague Quadrennial. They directed the premiere of The House of Telescopes by Kairos Looney for Pipeline. They developed work at Ars Nova, Judson Church, Kelly Strayhorn, The Theater Offensive, and The New Orleans CAC among others. Lyam co-created Alleged Lesbain Activities, a touring musical about the history of lesbian bars funded by the MAP fund and the NEFA National Theater Project. Drama League Resident 2023 and 2021, Drama League Fellow 2017. Assistant Professor at Lehigh University. www.lyambgabel.com BIOGRAPHIES Xotchil Musser (Set & Lighting Design, they/she) is a multi-skilled human who enjoys designing for theatre, dance, installations, and other forms of visual + interactive art. As a child, they lived on an island south of Miami; now they live in NYC where they examine the exploration of how theater can be applied to community health and healing. Xotchil is an advocate for antiracist theatre and strives to build a community in the industry based on equitable practices and altruism. For more information, visit xotchil.com. Joseph Amodei (Co-Media Design, they/them) is a new media artist, theater designer, community health researcher, activist, and educator whose work explores the intersections of art, emerging technology, and community. Originally from North Carolina, Joseph earned their BFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA in Video and Media Design from Carnegie Mellon University. They currently serve as Assistant Professor of Media Design at Lehigh University, where they develop innovative curricula integrating immersive technologies, design research, and socially engaged media practices. Some recent projects include An Archive of Queer Care, a virtual reality experience exploring 3D photogrammetry archiving and embedded oral histories; Packing and Cracking, a game-based theater project addressing gerrymandering; the dance floor, the hospital room, and the kitchen table, a multimedia exploration of the HIV/AIDS crisis and queer care; and Engaging Together for Healthy Relationships, an initiative aimed at improving education around adolescent relationships. www.jamodei.com davine byon (Co-Media Design, she/her) is a Korean-American media designer, performance artist, and curatorial assistant at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. Her recent media work for theater has been featured at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Lenfest Center for the Arts, City Theatre Company, and The Andy Warhol Museum. Her original performance pieces include Prophecies and Soy Sauce Shots with Caroline Yoo for Kelly Strayhorn Theater's Freshworks residency and ?? (connection) with her mother, Jeemin Kim, at the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art. BFA: Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama. Aaron Landgraf (Sound Design) is a sound designer for theater, video games, audiobooks, and a ton of other things. Some recent past projects where he has led the audio process include: The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir by Martha S. Jones (Basic Books), Sleeping on Islands, A Life in Poetry by Andrew Motion (W.F Howes), All The Words But The One (XO Productions Inc., directed by Nava Mau). Some recent past projects where he has collaborated as member of the sound design team include: Angel Island (Produced by Beth Morrison Projects at BAM, NY, New York, Sound Design by Angela Baughman), Asgard's Wrath 2 (Sanzaru Games, Meta Quest, 2024 D.I.C.E Awards Immersive Reality Game of the Year), and Lego 2k Drive (2k and Visual Concepts, all major consoles). He holds an MFA in sound design from Carnegie Mellon University. You can find more about him at www.adlandgraf.com. ABOUT PlayCO PlayCo (Kate Loewald, Founding Producer, and Robert G. Bradshaw, Executive Producer) is an Obie Award-winning Off-Broadway theater. PlayCo develops and produces adventurous new plays from the U.S. and around the world, to advance a dynamic global experience of contemporary theater and expand the voices and perspectives represented on U.S. stages. PlayCo has produced 45 new plays from the United States, Central and South America, Europe, Russia, South and East Asia, and the Middle East. PlayCo's distinctive international programming links American theatre with world theater, American artists with the global creative community, and American audiences with a whole world of plays. Previous productions include Corinne Jaber's Munich Medea: Happy Family, Abhishek Majumdar's 9 Kinds of Silence, Adrian Einspanier's acclaimed Lunch Bunch, Ebru Nihan Celkan's Will You Come With Me?, Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas' Recent Alien Abductions, Lee Sunday Evans' New York Times Critics' Pick production of Stefano Massini's Intractable Woman: A Theatrical Memo on Anna Politkovskaya, Amir Nizar Zuabi's This Is Who I Am and the sold-out Oh My Sweet Land, Guillermo Calderón's Villa, Christopher Chen's Caught (Obie Award for Playwriting, 2017), Kyle Jarrow & Lauren Worsham's The Wildness, debbie tucker green's generations, Aya Ogawa's Ludic Proxy, Antonio Vega's The Duchamp Syndrome, and more. PlayCo's office space on the island known as Mannahatta (Manhattan), and the rehearsal and performance spaces we use throughout New York City are located in Lenapehoking, the homeland of the Lenape people. www.playco.org ABOUT THE FLEA The Flea was refounded in 2021 with the mission to support and invest in experimental art by Black, brown, and queer artists. The Flea provides space, financial support, producing partnership and other resources so that they may develop and share their vision in community with audiences. www.theflea.org ABOUT WOOLLY MAMMOTH The Tony Award®-winning Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company creates badass theatre that highlights the stunning, challenging, and tremendous complexity of our world. For over 40 years, Woolly has maintained a high standard of artistic rigor while simultaneously daring to take risks, innovate, and push beyond perceived boundaries. One of the few remaining theatres in the country to maintain a company of artists, Woolly serves an essential research and development role within the American theatre. Plays premiered here have gone on to productions at hundreds of theatres all over the world and have had lasting impacts on the field. Currently co-led by Artistic Director Maria Manuela Goyanes and Managing Director Kimberly E. Douglas, Woolly is located in Washington, DC, equidistant from the Capitol and the White House. This unique location influences Woolly's investment in actively working towards an equitable, participatory, and creative democracy. Woolly Mammoth stands upon occupied, unceded territory: the ancestral homeland of the Nacotchtank whose descendants belong to the Piscataway peoples. Furthermore, the foundation of this city, and most of the original buildings in Washington, DC, were funded by the sale of enslaved people of African descent and built by their hands. ABOUT KELLY STRAYHORN THEATER Named after 20th century entertainment legends Gene Kelly and Billy Strayhorn, both natives of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Kelly Strayhorn Theater (KST) is a home for creative experimentation, community dialogue, and collective action rooted in the liberation of Black and queer people. We welcome our home to all who uplift Black, Indigenous, people of color, and queer voices. KST is an institutional arts anchor in Pittsburgh's East End that has served the community for more than two decades. Since launching KST Presents programming in '08, KST has been Black-led, fostering radical imagination for Black and queer arts, culture, and community in Pittsburgh by cultivating BIPOC and/or queer artists, entrepreneurs, and arts administrators, developing their careers, and shifting narratives around Black possibility. # # # # https://thenewflea.org/ www.facebook.com/thefleatheater www.instagram.com/thefleatheater https://www.tiktok.com/@thefleanyc |
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