38.107.179.224 Medicine Show
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Medicine Show Theatre Ensemble...

.... is a Company of professional theatre artists dedicated to offering creative alternatives to conventional theatre by creating and presenting works that experiment with languge, music, movement, form and ideas, and meld the strengths of theatrical tradition with innovation. We offer provocative theater for professional theatergoers!

The works are chosen to delight the mind, honor creativity, confound empty convention, encourage active compassion and present the many facets of the American experience within a global community. We are committed to the belief in theater as an art form that inspires, challenges, questions and entertains. This commitment is reflected in our choice of repertory and the multi-ethnic composition of the Ensemble.

Barbara Vann - Artistic Director

 

 

THIS IS MEDICINE SHOW'S 42ND YEAR!

 

For over four decades we have done over 50 NY, U.S. & world premieres - collaboratively created work, new plays, & new translations of major international plays, & some 200 productions in all. Some of this year's:

Sept. - Oct.: Paris -- Cole Porter's first hit musical from 1928 returns. A story of a proper Bostonian's visit to Paris theatrical life with unpredictable results.

Jan. – June: JUMP-START – Staged readings of new plays chosen for their attempts to re-formulate the definition of theatre, 2 performances each. This year's have included plays by Dennis Kelly Higgins, David Elyha, John Gruen, Howard Pflanzer, Susan Quinn & Dan Jacobs, Alvin Eng, and more to come.

March - June: WORD/PLAY – Our celebrated writers' reading series' 28th year. All that words can do (except plays), and the writers are present to answer questions.This year features Maurice Edwards & Jean-Claude van Itallie reading from memoirs, Roy Lisker reading his own work, Linda Gregg & friends in a tribute to Jack Gilbert and the publication of his recent book, Gary Heidt & Cassandra Weston, and many more.

April - May: Beggar's Opera by John Gay – the 1728 comic masterpiece is a send up of maudlin lovestories, ornate opera, and political corruption -- mocking the "arrangements" between the criminal classes and those of law and disorder. Gay sets fresh words to English folk songs and our arrangements run from baroque to folk to jazz. Brecht redid it as Threepenny Opera -- but it's funnier in the original English.

June - July: Wall Street; or, Ten Minutes Before Three: A Farce, in Three Acts  by William Holmes - published in 1819, and, as far as we can tell, never performed. This farce, only about thirty minutes long, will be surrounded by songs of hard times from 1819 to the present, including those by "Yip" Harburg and Leonard Cohen; also, possibly a few takes on economic malfuntion.