Two-Part Names & Other Joys: An Interview with Faith Zamblé
The Civilians' Resident Dramaturg Phoebe Corde sits down (virtually) with Extended Play editor Faith Zamblé to talk dramaturgy, research, and more.
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Some amazing artists we’ve featured in the past, Dickie Beau and Dan Hoyle, have new performances coming up soon, and Kevin Augustine’s Lone Wolf Tribe’s freaky new puppet performance is up at La MaMa. Check out our weekly roundup below. As always, the weekly roundup isn’t an endorsement, as we’ve not personally seen everything. It’s our way of keeping you in the loop.
Drag fabulist Dickie Beau embodies counter-cultural figures and movie stars alike. Miming to spoken word rather than song, Beau has revitalized the tradition of lip-syncing, performing with the showmanship of a drag artist and the melancholy of a clown. At home on the stages of clubs, theaters and cabarets, he has received awards including the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award.
For his first major U.S. solo show, Dickie Beau conjures the wayward spirits of Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, and journalist Richard Meryman. In uncanny invocations performed to a shadowy soundscape of their own voices, he merges reality with illusion and his identity with those of his idols. The result is an ethereal portrait of icons in exile and a reflection on the lingering impressions they’ve left behind.
“This is lip-syncing to spoken word. It’s about channeling voices, imagining them going through my body, which becomes a conduit for other things, like glitches in machines.” – Dickie Beau
Escaping the liberal urban bubble, award-winning playwright and performer Dan Hoyle spent 100 days traveling through small-town America. Living out of his van, he found himself sharing meals and conversations with union coal miners, rural drug dealers, anti-war Veterans, and closeted gay creation theory experts, among others. Hoyle sought to see the world through their eyes, and found himself at ground zero of our country’s growing economic inequality and polarized politics.
Two Obama terms and 350 performances in a dozen cities later, the show is back. Why? Because Donald Trump has made it all wildly relevant again. Come sit with the characters that made THE REAL AMERICANS a runaway hit. With additional material based on travels in Summer 2016 to reconnect with some of the people that inspired the original show.
“Mr. Hoyle is both a first-rate reporter and actor.” – New York Times
“Where Did We Sit on the Bus?” is an electric one-man show pulsing with Latin rhythms, rap, hip-hop, spoken word, and live looping. During a third grade lesson on the Civil Rights movement and Rosa Parks, a Latino boy raises his hand to ask, “Where did we sit on the bus?” and his teacher can’t answer the question. This thrilling autobiographical production, written and performed by Brian Quijada, examines what it means to be Latino through the eyes of a child, turned teenager, turned adult.
“An explosion of energy, comic verve, playful sexiness, raw emotion, and irresistible storytelling.”
– Hedy Weiss, The Chicago Sun-Times
The God Projekt by Lone Wolf Tribe from La MaMa on Vimeo.
“One of the most startling intense shows I’ve ever seen.” – Time Out New York Alone
In a barren paradise, God the Father struggles with dementia as he tries to manage his divine office. While juggling an unending flow of prayer requests, he uncovers an ancient secret he’d rather remain forgotten: what happened to the Mother Goddess who once shared his heavenly throne? The God Projekt is Lone Wolf Tribe’s raucous investigation into the secret history of God featuring Catskill-style comedy, bloody puppetry and a tour-de-force performance by Augustine as the “Man Upstairs.” Presented in association with Untitled Theater Company No. 61. Click For More Info