Off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons will present Monica Bill Barnes and Robbie Saenz de Viteri's dance-based memory play Many Happy Returns January 9-18, 2025, with all performances offered completely free of charge.
The work, originally commissioned by WP Theater, sees both Barnes and Saenz de Viteri taking on the role of Barnes, with Barnes as the artist's body and Saenz de Viteri as the artist's voice. The partially scripted and partially improvised piece tracks Barnes as she voices doubts she's desperate to mask via dance.
鈥淪o much is changing about what it means to be making live work now," says Barnes in a statement. "That ever-shifting ground is pretty unsettling for a lot of us, in a lot of ways. Robbie and I felt like, 鈥榊ou know what? We want to make our own ever-shifting landscape to live in.鈥� It鈥檚 this joyful thing that鈥檚 also terrifying as a classically trained dancer; it鈥檚 an actor鈥檚 nightmare that I keep saying, enthusiastically, yes to.鈥�
鈥淢onica and I have no similarity in terms of training, but we laugh at the same things, and we get upset about a lot of the same things," adds Saenz de Viteri. "In a crowded place, we find ourselves noticing a lot of the same things. Those overlaps became the grounds, many years ago, for starting to make things together. In Many Happy Returns, we鈥檙e taking all the pieces that make up a 鈥榗haracter鈥� onstage鈥攁 story, a background, a specific way of moving, a specific way of talking鈥攁nd breaking them all apart from each other. This fragmentary character of 鈥楳onica鈥� has allowed us both to channel some really vulnerable aspects of ourselves and share them in a different way than we ever have in our work鈥攖o ask how we make ourselves, out in the world, on a day to day basis.鈥�
The company will also include Flannery Gregg and Mykel Marai Nairne, and, at select performances, Indah Mariana and Hsiao-Jou Tang. Saenz de Viteri has written the show, with choreography by Barnes. Anne Kauffman is serving as directing consultant with Elizabeth Furman as associate producer. Lighting and set design will be by Barbara Samuels and costume design will be by Kaye Voyce.
"Historically, Playwrights Horizons鈥� programming has excluded playwrights who create new work via interdisciplinary, non-literary methods (e.g., ensemble-devised work, improvisation, physical theatre), and鈥攊n continuation of this theatre鈥檚 longtime dedication to advancing playwrights鈥擨 want to think expansively about what that word means," says Artistic Director Adam Greenfield in a statement. "From the moment I was first introduced to Many Happy Returns last year, I became eager to include these artists in our programming, not only because it affirms experimentation in the field of new plays but because鈥攊n its very conception鈥攖his play embodies powerfully the inclusive, galvanizing potential of theatre, as an art form and as a civic act."
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