One Isn’t the Loneliest Number
It doesn't take elaborate dance numbers, moving sets, and huge casts to make for compelling theatre. A single performer on stage can hold an audience's attention as tightly as a large ensemble. With a virtuosic performance at its core, a one-person show can also incorporate innovative technology, and has the potential to tell an epic tale. Here is a selection of the single performer shows NYTW has produced.
Creator and Performer - Dael Orlandersmith
Long-time New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect Dael Orlandersmith returned to the Workshop for her third solo performance: a semi-autobiographical exploration of the family we are born into and the family we choose. Forever draws from Orlandersmith’s own pilgrimage to the famed Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris — the final resting place of legendary artists such as Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. At the graveside of these timeless artists, Orlandersmith finds unexpected grace in a tale of the legacy a daughter inherits from her mother.
Adapter and Performer - Moe Angelos
Adapted from Susan Sontag’s early journals by performer Moe Angelos, Sontag: Reborn traces Sontag’s private life from the age of 14 to her emergence as a world-renowned author and activist. The young Sontag wrestles with her emerging sexuality and precocious intelligence, fraught with doubt and insecurity yet driven by her willfulness, ambition and voracious curiosity. The refuge of her diary became integral to her development as a writer, Sontag says herself, “In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could in person. I create myself." Sontag: Reborn was directed by Marianne Weems and used The Builders Association's signature synthesis of poetic video and sound.
Text Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare
Performers - Denis O'Hare and Stephen Spinella (Alternately)
Creators Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare crafted a sprawling yarn based on Homer's epic poem. An Iliad spins the familiar tale of gods and goddesses, undying love and endless battles told through an original and immediate voice. Actors Denis O'Hare and Stephen Spinella alternated as performers in this account of humanity's unshakeable attraction to violence, destruction and chaos.
I GOT SICK AND THEN I GOT BETTER
Written and performed by Jenny Allen
I Got Sick Then I Got Better is a comic riff on one woman's adventures after falling down the medical rabbit hole. Diagnosed with and treated for ovarian cancer in 2005, writer and performer Jenny Allen tells her story of the tailspin she took following her diagnosis, and portrays the personal and family collateral damage a life-threatening illness brings.
PATRIOT ACT: A PUBLIC MEDITATION
Patriot Act: A Public Meditation was not a traditional work of theatre but a multimedia presentation by media critic and political commentator Mark Crispin Miller. It consisted of material drawn from official government reports, press conference transcripts, and news service material to evidence a case that there are powerful forces undermining and erasing our fundamental liberties by relentless contempt for democratic practice and free speech. Each session of Patriot Act was totally unique, as Miller constantly combed through new material to give an up-to-the-minute portrait of what was really going on in America in 2004. During the presentations audiences were also able to participate in a question and answer period with Miller.
Writer and performer - Will Power
Flow, a product of the inaugural year of NYTW's Larson Lab, is the tale of seven storytellers, their quest for survival in a world of modern, urban pitfalls, and the search for a new language to make age-old lessons endure for a younger generation. Portraying many characters, Will Power paired vivid images conjured with eloquent rap and rhyme, and fluid, startling physical movement. DJ Reborn accompanied Will Power in Flow, punctuating the spoken word with music created specifically for the performance.
BLOWN SIDEWAYS THROUGH LIFE
Creator and Performer - Claudia Shear
Confrontational, angry, fed up but still fascinated by Life, Claudia Shear chronicles every one of the sixty-five jobs she has held. Every story is told with bewildered fascination.
LYPSINKA! A DAY IN THE LIFE
Text and Performance - John Epperson
Lypsinka! A Day in the Life was a glimpse into the charmed and ribald life of Lypsinka, the lip-syncing songstress persona created by John Epperson. From sun-up to sundown, Lypsinka! A Day in the Life follows the star through an all-too-typical day of housecleaning, daydreaming, singing, dancing and talking on the telephone in an ultra-glamorous fashion.
