Rimbaud in New York Written and Directed by Steve Cosson the Civilians Poems by Arthur Rimbaud Translated by John Ashbery
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2016 BAM Winter/Spring #RimbaudinNY Brooklyn Academy of Music Alan H. Fishman, Chairman of the Board William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board Adam E. Max, Vice Chairman of the Board Katy Clark, President Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer Rimbaud in New York Written and directed by Steve Cosson The Civilians Poems by Arthur Rimbaud translated by John Ashbery Produced by BAM with major support from the Poetry Foundation BAM Fisher (Fishman Space) Mar 1—5 at 7:30pm; Mar 6 at 3pm Scenic design by Andromache Chalfant Costume design by Paloma Young Lighting design by Eric Southern Season Sponsor: Sound design and additional compositions by Daniel Kluger Music direction by Matthew Dean Marsh Major support for French programming at BAM Choreography by Sam Pinkleton provided by The Grand Marnier Foundation. Songs by Adam Cochran, Michael Friedman, Major support for theater at BAM provided by: The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Rebecca Hart, Joseph Keckler, Matthew Dean The Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust Marsh, and Grace McLean Donald R. Mullen Jr. The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc. The Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund The SHS Foundation The Shubert Foundation, Inc. #RimbaudinNY ADAM COCHRAN HARRIETT D. FOY REBECCA HART JOSEPH KECKLER JO LAMPERT MATTHEW DEAN MARSH TONY TORN DITO VAN REIGERSBERG #RimbaudinNY CAST Adam Cochran Harriett D. Foy Rebecca Hart Joseph Keckler Jo Lampert Tony Torn Dito van Reigersberg Dance Captain Jo Lampert STAGE MANAGEMENT Production stage manager Samantha Watson Production assistant Hannah Spratt ADDITIONAL PRODUCTION CREDITS Assistant director Benjamin Viertel Casting director Geoff Josselson Assistant scenic design by Rebecca Lord-Surratt Assistant costume design by Zoë Allen Assistant lighting design by Will Delorm Associate sound design by Lee Kinney Props shopper Karin White ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Set constructed by Sightline Fabrication BAM would like to acknowledge Stephen Young, Program Director at The Poetry Foundation for his visionary support. Rimbaud’s texts used in this production are from his Illuminations, translated by John Ashbery (Norton, 2011). Copyright © 2011 by John Ashbery. All rights reserved. Presented through special arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of John Ashbery. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Subway), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Times Square), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Shooting Up), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Under Boardwalk), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. This Theatre operates under an agreement between the League Of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Rimbaud in New York—Song List 1. “Hot Mess Disaster Boy” Music by Adam Cochran Lyrics based on an interview by Steve Cosson with Lorin Stein & Violaine Huisman Performed by Full Company 2. “Phrases” Music by Grace McLean Lyrics based on the poem by Arthur Rimbaud, from the John Ashberry translation Performed by Harriett D. Foy, Rebecca Hart, and Jo Lampert 3. “Tale” Music by Adam Cochran Lyrics based on the poem by Arthur Rimbaud, from the John Ashberry translation Performed by Adam Cochran, Jo Lampert, and Company 4. “The Future of Poetry is Female” Music by Rebecca Hart Lyrics based on an interview by Steve Cosson with Ariana Reines Performed by Rebecca Hart 5. “Four Letters” Music by Michael Friedman Based on letters by Arthur Rimbaud Performed by Adam Cochran, Jo Lampert, Tony Torn, and Dito van Reigersberg 6. “City” Music and lyrics by Joseph Keckler Performed by Joseph Keckler 7. “Genie” Music by Adam Cochran and Matthew Marsh Based on the poem by Arthur Rimbaud, from the John Ashberry translation Performed by Jo Lampert and Company Note from Steve Cosson Last season, while working on The Belle of Amherst—a solo show about Emily Dickinson by William Luce, starring Joely Richardson—I wondered about how I would go about creating a show based on poetry, were I to start with the text and go from there. Specifically, I was curious about what might be gained by not centering the show on the character of the writer herself or himself. What might be revealed if one worked from the poems and how they are read, rather then how they might have been written? Is there a way to stage the multiple meanings of a poet’s work and the numerous and contradictory resonances a poet has for different readers and in different eras? These questions lingered when BAM invited me to create this show, a first-time collaboration of BAM and the Poetry Foundation. I chose Rimbaud’s Illuminations in its recent translation by the great American poet John Ashbery. There were many reasons for choosing Rimbaud, but foremost, reading these poems did something to me. It felt like an action; it felt physical—a sense of being taken through a visceral experience of image and sensation. Even more than that, Illuminations stretched my mind to see the unseeable, to try to think the unimaginable. Like stepping just partly into another dimension, these poems gave glimpses into another universe with very different laws of physics. Such an experience cracks open the ordinary world we live in. His poems are in a sense a gateway drug, but in the best possible way—to possibility, an escape hatch out of all that is boring or oppressive, and a bridge to a life lived fully awake. It was tempting to consider putting Rimbaud himself on stage. His life was nothing if not dramatic. But perhaps more than any other poet, Rimbaud evokes the opposite of character-centric. Rimbaud’s poems create and populate worlds. They have had a profound legacy with later readers and cultural movements that he couldn’t have imagined. The poems are there with the Surrealists, the New York School, the birth of punk, the downtown scenes of poetry and visual art, and among writers and readers today. Rimbaud may have had a small audience for his work when he was alive, but since then his influence has been vast, particularly considering the musician/poets he’s influenced such as Patti Smith and Bob Dylan, and others who have brought their own Rimbaudian visions to new publics. And although Rimbaud himself never came to America, he has been and still is very much present, particularly in “downtown” New York City (wherever or whatever that might mean now). In creating The Civilians’ show Rimbaud in New York, this presence of Rimbaud in downtown was my way in. I interviewed many poets, artists, and performers: Eileen Myles, Dael Orlandersmith, Adam Fitzgerald, CA Conrad, Ariana Reines, David Wojnarowicz’s biographer Cindy Carr, and John Ashbery, to name a few. And then I gathered a group of performers, songwriters, and designers to make our show set in the multiple layers of New York’s downtown cultural scenes. But the center of the event is the living, very present voice of these extraordinary poems. —Steve Cosson Who’s Who THE CIVILIANS creates new theater from the first time—works by virtually every major creative investigations into the most vital contemporary poet. poetryfoundation.org. questions of the present. Through a number of artistic programs, The Civilians advances STEVE COSSON (writer and director) is a theater as an engine of artistic innovation and director and writer, and is artistic director of strengthens the connections between theater The Civilians. Recent directing credits for The and society. Last season the company was Civilians include Pretty Filthy (Abrons Arts the first ever theater company-in-residence at Center); The Great Immensity (The Public the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The previous Theater Lab); Mr. Burns (Playwrights Horizons, season saw two highly successful Civilians top 10 lists in The New York Times, Time Out, shows in New York: Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric The New Yorker, Vogue, and others); Paris Play at Playwrights Horizons, which was Commune (Public Theater, BAM Next Wave, La included in eight top 10 of 2013 lists, as Jolla Playhouse); In the Footprint (Top 10, The well as The Great Immensity at The Public New York Times); This Beautiful City (Vineyard, Theater. Since its founding in 2001, the Obie Kirk Douglas Theatre, Humana Festival); (I am) Award-winning company has been produced Nobody’s Lunch (Edinburgh Fringe First Award); at numerous theaters in New York, including and Gone Missing. Other Civilians productions the BAM Next Wave Festival, Vineyard Theater, have appeared at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Barrow Street Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and Kansas City Rep, American Repertory Theater, The Public Theater; nationally at Center Theatre TED Conference, HBO’s Comedy Festival, Group, the TED Conference, HBO’s US Comedy MoMA, the Baltic Triennial, the Gate Theatre Festival, ART, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and and Soho Theatre in London, and many others. internationally at London’s Gate Theatre and Other recent credits include Dael Orlandersmith’s Soho Theatre. thecivilians.org | extendedplay. Stoop Stories; Ethel’s Documerica (BAM Next thecivilians.org. Wave); Spring Awakening (Olney Theatre); Anne Washburn’s A Devil at Noon (Humana Festival); THE POETRY FOUNDATION, publisher of and Bus Stop (Kansas City Rep). His plays are Poetry magazine, is an independent literary published by Dramatists Play Service, Oberon organization committed to a vigorous presence Books, and Playscripts, Inc.