BY ROBIN FROHARDT Wednesday, June 30 - Sunday, July 11, 2021 661 Imperial Street ART MATTERS NOW MORE THAN EVER
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Photo by Maria Baranova BY ROBIN FROHARDT Wednesday, June 30 - Sunday, July 11, 2021 661 Imperial Street ART MATTERS NOW MORE THAN EVER WELCOME TO UCLA’S CENTER FOR THE ART OF PERFORMANCE UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) is the public facing research and presenting organization for the performing arts at the University of California, Los Angeles—one of the world’s leading public research universities. We are housed within the UCLA School of the Arts & Architecture along with the Hammer and Fowler museums. The central pursuit of our work as an organization is to sustain the diversity of contemporary performing artists while celebrating their contributions to culture. We acknowledge, amplify and support artists through major presentations, commissions and creative development initiatives. Our programs offer audiences a direct connection to the ideas, perspectives and concerns of living artists. Through the lens of dance, theater, music, literary arts, digital media arts and collaborative disciplines, informed by diverse racial and cultural backgrounds, artists and audiences come together in our theaters and public spaces to explore new ways of seeing that expands our understanding of the world we live in now. cap.ucla.edu #CAPUCLA Photo by Tony Lewis CAP UCLA Presents BY ROBIN FROHARDT Wednesday, June 30 - Sunday, July 11, 2021 661 Imperial Street (DTLA) One store, two ways to experince, hundreds of bags Installation: (Duration 30 mins.) Tue-Fri 2:30PM-5PM (last entry 4:30 PM) Sat & Sun 12:30PM-2PM (last entry 1:30 PM) July 4: Closed July 5: Special hours 12PM-7PM (last entry 6:30 PM) Immersive Film Experience: (Duration 60 mins.) Tue-Fri 1PM & 6PM Sat & Sun 11AM, 3PM & 5PM July 4: Closed Recommended for Ages 12+ due to current health protocols MESSAGE FROM THE ARTIST Dear Most Valued Customers: It’s almost impossible for me to try to explain what it is you are about to experience and the journey it took to get here. I started working on The Plastic Bag Store in 2015 after watching someone bag and double bag all my groceries that were already bags inside of bags inside of boxes. I wanted to highlight the absurd amount of packaging we are using and throwing away by making something even more absurd, a grocery store that only sold packaging. Over time the project evolved into an elaborate immersive puppet play with transforming sets and hidden rooms. For several years, my amazing team and I slowly pieced together this epic beast of a project. Sometimes that meant working with the support of prestigious residencies at architectural firms and fellowships at Universities. But more often it meant grueling rehearsals, endless schlepping and hours spent sifting through NYC garbage. With all the pieces finally in place and a venue to die for, The Plastic Bag Store was set to open in the heart of Times Square on March 18, 2020...ya know... the day the whole world shut down? We did one amazing dress rehearsal and locked the doors and walked away. I think part of me wanted to give up after that. With the support of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, we were able to create a filmed version of the project, I was relieved that there would be some record of what we created (we didn’t film that rehearsal). I never imagined how beautiful the film would turn out, and how perfectly it would capture the story as I see it in my head. We then found a way to integrate the film into the installation for a live experience which we ultimately got to show in Times Square, take to Australia and finally to premiere in Los Angeles! So, creating the film has made The Plastic Bag Store viable and tourable in this time in a way that other projects haven’t been. For that, I cannot be more grateful. -Robin Frohardt ABOUT THE PROGRAM Conceived, written and directed by Robin Frohardt* In collaboration with: Nick Lehane, Admiral Grey*, Rowan Magee, Andy Manjuck, Tyler Gunther* and Emma Wiseman Original music by Freddi Price Sound Designer: Chad Raines Produced by Linda Brumbach, Robin Frohardt and Alisa E. Regas Production Management: Pomegranate Arts Technical director: Jeremy Lydic General Manager Rachel Katwan Filmed Elements Director of Photography Robert Kolodny Producer Caitlin Mae Burke Sound Design and Mix Lawrence Everson Production Staff Sound Engineer: Chad Raines Originating Puppetry Lighting Designer: Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew Associate Lighting Designer: Tsubasa Kamei Stage Manager: Erica Zippel Schnitzer Production Assistant: Tyler Gunther* Scenic Construction: Silovsky Studios, Lydic! Design and Production Props Construction support: Admiral Grey, Tyler Gunther Illustrations, Graphics and costume Design Support: Tyler Gunther *appears in live immersive installation The Plastic Bag Store was commissioned by Times Square Arts with generous support provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; the National Endowment for the Arts; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Additional commissioning support has been provided by Carolina Performing Arts, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was developed with support from: MANA Contemporary, The Made in NY Women’s Film, TV & Theatre Fund by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts; Olson Kundig; The Jim Henson Foundation; and is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC). The Plastic Bag Store film segments were commissioned by the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA with additional support by the Adelaide Festival. The Plastic Bag Store is a project of Creative Capital. The Plastic Bag Store film segments were commissioned by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance with additional support by the Adelaide Festival. Co-Produced by Robin Frohardt and Pomegranate Arts. The Plastic Bag Store gives special thanks to Paul Lazar and Morgan Jenness for dramaturgical and directorial consultation. Photo by Maria Baranova for Times Square Arts ABOUT THE ARTIST Photo by Maria Baranova for Times Square Arts Robin Frohardt is an award-winning artist, puppet designer, and director living in Brooklyn, NY. Frohardt’s performance and puppetry-based work has been presented at St. Ann’s Warehouse and HERE in New York City, as well as national venues including the Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts and the NEXTNOW Festival in Maryland. Her films have been screened at the Telluride Film Festival, Maritime Film Festival, and the Parish Museum. Her original play The Pigeoning, which debuted in 2013 and was hailed by the New York Times as “a tender, fantastical symphony of the imagination,” continues to tour in the US and abroad, and has been translated into German, Greek, Arabic and Turkish. She has received a Creative Capital Award and a DisTil Fellowship from Carolina Performing Arts for The Plastic Bag Store; has been the recipient of Made In NY Woman’s Fund Grant Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and MacDowell Colony Fellowship; and was the first artist in Residence at Olson Kundig, a renowned design and architecture firm in Seattle. Photo by Maria Baranova for Times Square Arts ABOUT THE TEAM freddi price (Composer) is a multi-disciplinary performing and recording artist, musician, multi-instrumentalist, band leader, composer, actor and voiceover artist. Over the years he has collaborated, composed and performed with bands, artists and stage productions on both US coasts in addition to touring in the US and Europe with his talents and music having been featured by the likes of David Byrne, Eric Burdon, Ann Magnuson among many others on stage and on recordings. His compositions, performances and voice have accompanied theater productions in San Francisco and New York. For his original music for Robin Frohardt’s previous NYC puppet theater piece, The Pigeoning, he was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play. Besides providing music for theater and some commercial work, fp also performs on many instruments and voice in a variety of forms and genres, from solo to large groups, blues to rock and soul, brass band and cabaret. Chad Raines (Sound Designer) is a Sound Designer and Composer from Dallas, TX. For theater he has collaborated with Rachel Chavkin, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Robert Woodruff and many others. As a performer he has shared the stage with David Byrne, Amanda Palmer, White Denim, Weasel Walter, Ra Ra Riot, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, and many others. At the moment he performs with the bands Holy Hell and The Simple Pleasure. Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (Originating Puppetry Lighting Designer) is a designer for theatre, opera, dance, music performances and installation. Her designs have been seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Rose Theater Jazz at Lincoln Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC), HERE Arts Center, St. Ann’s Warehouse, La Mama ETC, The Kitchen, ArtsEmerson, Manhattan School of Music, Joyce SOHO, Bard Music Festival, REDCAT, Highways Performance Space, and internationally at Havana, Prague, Lima, Edinburgh, Tokyo, Graz Austria and Bloemfontein South Africa. Jeanette received the Bel Geddes Design Enhancement award for her lighting and projection design for Ludic Proxy. She was the recipient of the 2009-2011 NEA/TCG Career Development Program and was the 2006 Gilbert Hemsley Jr. lighting internship. Jeanette currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and advises at Barnard College. Erica Zippel Schnitzer (Stage Manager) is a Brooklyn-based theater maker.