Alas, the Nymphs
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Brooklyn Academy of Music World Premiere Alan H. Fishman, Chairman of the Board William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board Alas, Adam E. Max, Vice Chairman of the Board Katy Clark, The Nymphs... President Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer John Jahnke/Hotel Savant DATES: DEC 9—12 at 7:30pm LOCATION: BAM Fisher (Fishman Space) RUN TIME: Approx 1hr 10min (no intermission) Season Sponsor: Leadership support for programming by New York City artists in the BAM Fisher provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Additional support provided by the TinMan Fund. Major support for theater at BAM provided by The Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust Donald R. Mullen Jr. The Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund The SHS Foundation The Shubert Foundation, Inc. #ALASTHENYMPHS Make-up provided by #BAMNextWave MAC Cosmetics. BAM Fisher Alas,The Nymphs... STAGE: VIDEO: CAST SCRIPT, DIRECTION, MOVEMENT, & VIDEO ACTORS DESIGN Tanisha Thompson John Jahnke Hillary Spector Melody Bates DRYOPE Tanisha Thompson ORIGINAL SCORE Shan Xiao Fennesz Sebastian Quinn Hillary Spector Bobby Warden DIANA SET DESIGN Tyler Ashley Gordon Landenberger Sandor DeGrazia CYBELE LeeAnne Hutchison VIDEO DESIGN VIDEO ACTORS/DUBBING NOMIA Melody Bates Josh Higgason Okwui Okpokwasili Carey Urban SOUND DESIGN Raquel Cion ECHO Hwalan Shub Kristin Worrall Alexander Borinsky HYLAS Sebastian Quinn COSTUME DESIGN Ramona Ponce DIRECTION Alexander Borinsky John Jahnke ENDYMION LIGHTING DESIGN Laura Mroczkowski CINEMATOGRAPHY Andrew Schneider TIME CHOREOGRAPHY CONSULTANT Yesterday and Today. Jordan Isadore MUSIC Calder Singer MAKE-UP PLACE Renee Ray SET Mount Latmos, Caria. Gordon Landenberger STAGE PRODUCTION MANAGER YESTERDAY: Greece. James Fry SOUND Kristin Worrall TODAY: Turkey. STAGE MANAGER Karen Oughtred LIGHTING SETTING James Sprang The storage room of a cliffside hotel. ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Once an ancient palace, with a spring. KJ Morton COSTUMES Ramona Ponce CREATIVE CONSULTANT Bruno Llos SET MANAGEMENT KJ Morton COMPANY ADMINISTRATION Nina Kulmala PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Nicholas Berube PRODUCER Hotel Savant Additional Music Fennesz’s score commissioned by the The Nymph’s Song Austrian Cultural Forum New York. by Calder Singer Jason and the Argonauts by Bernard Hermann ABOUT the disguised king seeks shelter aboard the Argonauts’ ship. Suspecting his Alas, The Nymphs... presence aboard the ship the nymph threatens the Argonauts, warning them , c. 220 B.C.E. Director’s Notes that if one of their men dares enter her and her fellow nymphs’ sanctuary, he Alas, The Nymphs… is Part 1 of the will be captured in lieu of the king. trilogy Men Go Down, which utilizes Fearful, the king orders Hylas, a young the construction of a Greek drama squire of Heracles, to the nymphs’ cave and the sensibility of a classic fairy for water, where he meets an uncertain BarberiniThe Faun Image: (Glyptothek Museum, Munich) tale to examine how the ramifications fate. of antique guilt infest our modern conscience. The trilogy title, with all its Alas, The Nymphs… mirrors the an- implications, takes its name from the cient uprisings of women against men, poetry of Homer, in which he writes as in the violent acts of defilement in about a certain harbor: The Bacchae, and the Orpheus myths, and inverts the topical issue of sexual At the head of the harbor is a long- violence during periods of war and civil leafed olive tree, and near it a unrest. pleasant, shadowy cave sacred to the nymphs that are called Naiads… And By setting Part 1 in the present time in this cave are long looms of stone, on stage, with the aging nymphs and at which the nymphs weave webs of former king meeting again and re- purple dye, a wonder to behold; and enacting and reminiscing upon their therein are also ever-flowing springs. past actions, as a form of ritual, Alas, Two doors there are to the cave, one The Nymphs… is about fated entranc- toward the North Wind, by which men es and exits from the mortal trappings go down, but that toward the South of existence. For though given a very Wind is sacred, nor do men enter long life, nymphs—according to the thereby: it is the way of the immortals. Homeric hymns—are also fated to suc- cumb, die, and fade away, as men. Following a Greek king, Endymion of Elis, who abandons his war torn En route they relive sacred memories country for the safety of a cliff-side and gestures. The subtle movement cave, the Men Go Down trilogy time- periodically employed by the nymphs travels through the extended lifespan is a choreographic equation inspired by of the tormented ruler, a man who eight lines from the text. Based on the simply will not make a decision about structure of these phrases, the words, how to handle his human responsibili- when spoken, instigate a form of mus- ties, and until he does so, cannot die. cle memory, uniting the cerebral and Alas, The Nymphs… focuses on this corporal. The past as present. Present initial abandonment, and the violent as past. Or, as Dryope emphatically consequences of the king’s cata- states: “Yesterday is today for me. And strophic disappearance. Pursued by his yesterday is here.” forsaken fiancée, the Naiad Dryope, Other stage work includes Antonin Artaud’s The Cenci, in a translation by FENNESZ HILLARY SPECTOR Richard Sieburth (Ohio Theater, Henry Original Score Diana Hewes design awards nominations: Christian Fennesz uses guitar and Hillary Spector is an actor, director, Who’s notable effects/production design), and computer to create shimmering, swirl- and choreographer. Her work has been the world premiere of Susan Sontag’s A ing electronic sound of enormous range seen in NYC at the Prelude Festival, Parsifal (PS 122). and complex musicality. “Imagine the PS 122, Alice Tully Hall, 3LD, Classic electric guitar severed from cliché and Stage Co., Guggenheim Works & Pro- In Los Angeles, under the auspices of Who all of its physical limitations, shap- cess, the Public Theater, and the Ohio. Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, ing a bold new musical language.” With Hotel Savant she has appeared in JOHN JAHNKE Jahnke and his first company, De- (City Newspaper, US). His lush and Black Recollections: Men Go Down— Script, Direction, Movement, and ranged Cousins, created The Beasts of luminous compositions are anything Part 3, The Archery Contest, The Design Luxury (or A Tragic History of Beauty but sterile computer experiments. They Shady Maids of Haiti, and Mercurius. and Bloodshed: The Horror of Gilles de resemble sensitive, telescopic record- Outside of New York, credits include John Jahnke is a New York-based art- Rais and Erzsébet Báthory), Syphilis ings of rainforest insect life or natural the Seattle Opera, Spoleto Festival ist, playwright, and director of theater and The Monster of Düsseldorf (or atmospheric occurrences, an inherent USA, L’Opéra de Nantes, L’Opéra and film. He has been the artistic di- Paint me, Paint Me, Peter Kurten), naturalism permeating each piece. d’Angers, L’Opéra de Nice, and the rector of Hotel Savant since 1999. He as well as a staging of Oscar Wilde’s Christian Fennesz is published by National Theater of Catalonia. She is has developed work at BAM Next Wave unfinished play La Sainte Courtisane. Touch Music. He lives and works in also the drama teacher at PS 36. Festival, Park Avenue Armory, PS122, Vienna. Watermill Center, MacDowell Colony, He has also directed many short films, ALEXANDER BORINSKY Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Or- including the stage video for Alas, The TANISHA THOMPSON Endymion chard Project, Abrons Art Center, Public Nymphs… and Funeral Games, as Dryope Theater, the Hermitage, Chashama, well as His Red Snow White Apple Alexander Borinsky is a playwright and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Lips and Sex, Death and Rebirth in Tanisha Thompson is a Brooklyn-based performer, originally from Baltimore. and 3LD Art and Technology Center. July, which have screened at festivals performer. Previous Hotel Savant roles His credits with Hotel Savant include throughout the US and Europe. Other include Dryope in Black Recollections: Endymion in Black Recollections: Original theater works include the Men short films include Cakehole Howl, My Men Go Down—Part 3 (PS 122/3lD Men Go Down—Part 3 (3LD Art Go Down trilogy, of which Alas, The Erector Set is Blue, and Stiffs in a Car. Art and Technology Center), Fury #2 in and Technology Center) and Dory in Nymphs… is Part 1. Part 3, Black Jahnke was also a member of Reza Funeral Games (The Public Theater), The Archery Contest (PS 122). As Recollections, premiered through PS Abdoh’s Dar a Luz company, appear- the title role of Mercurius (HERE), and a writer, he has been a 2014—15 122 at 3LD Art and Technolgy Center ing in Simon Boccanegra and Quota- The Shady Maids Of Haiti (Walker- LMCC workspace resident, member of in 2011. Part 2, The Sleep of Endy- tions From a Ruined City. He has also space). Other roles include Thami in Youngblood, and resident playwright mion, will premiere in 2017. Other served as the associate producer in the My Children! My Africa!, Wendy in with Masrah Ensemble in Beirut, original works include The Archery department of media and performance Neverland, Moll in The Roaring Girl, Lebanon, where he helped organize Contest (PS 122, Henry Hewes design art at MoMA in New York City. He is and Richmond in Julius Caesar (Judith the Triangles festival of new writing nomination: set design); Funeral a former opera ballet student studying Shakespeare Company). She has also and translation. He has ongoing Games (Public Theater, performance with Milwaukee Ballet and Interlochen collaborated with Michelle Matlock, collaborations with Rady&Bloom workshop); The Shady Maids of Haiti Arts Academy, and received a BFA (The Mammy Project), Lee Frisari, (HARP@HERE Arts Center), composer (Walkerspace); Mercurius (HERE), from the California Institute of the Arts’ (Sez.me) and Becca Blackwell, (Un- Joe White, and choreographer Rebeca and Lola Montez in Bavaria… (HERE).