The Talking Band

presents

    FLIP SIDE

Written by Ellen Maddow

Set Design by Anna Kiraly

Music  by “Blue” Gene Tyranny

                                                     Directed by Paul Zimet

                                                  September 26 – October 19

Tuesdays-Saturdays: 8:00 p.m.

Sundays: 3:00 p.m.

(No performance Tuesday, October 7)

www.flip-side.org

The Talking Band presents FLIP SIDE written by Ellen Maddow and directed by Paul Zimet, with set and video by Anna Kiraly, music by “Blue” Gene Tyranny,  puppets by Ralph Lee, costumes by Kiki Smith, and lights by Nan Zhang. Friday, September 26 – October 19, 2008 at the The Connelly Theatre (220 East 4^th Street)  Previews begin Friday, September 26, 2008 with an official opening on Tuesday, September 30, 2008. 

The cast features William Badgett, David Brooks, John Hellweg, Sue Jean Kim,  Heidi Schreck, and Tina Shepard.

Flip Side is a comedy of longing, misperceptions, and mismatches. The characters are fascinated with whatever is just out of reach or partially hidden.  They are oddly attracted to or repelled by people they observe from a distance. Two sets of characters –played by the same six actors –occupy two different worlds.   In Part I we are introduced to the inhabitants of Drizzle Plaza -- a bleak and empty place, like a city where everyone has gone on vacation. The people who reside there are drowning in the seductive power of infatuation, yearning, and regret.   In Part II, the set unfolds and transforms to reveal the “flip side” world inhabited by the Waterfall family: it is a world of constant motion and relentless cheerfulness with a dose of claustrophobia. In Part III, the two worlds mingle: as the characters encounter and pursue each other their worlds are turned inside out and upside down as if they are entangled in a giant Mobius strip.

Flip Side is the product of an unconventional collaboration between  OBIE award-winning playwright Ellen Maddow and the Hungarian-born designer Anna Kiraly. The Talking Band  inverted the traditional creative process by asking Anna to first design a set, and then having Ellen create a play inspired by the visual/physical environment. The play is filled with visual illusion and impossible perspectives but the characters’ lives are rooted in the concrete: A woman tosses and turns in bed as her husband types feverishly on a laptop (consumed by an internet relationship with a woman he hasn’t seen in thirty years); two elderly ladies in rain coats, carrying small dogs in hand knit sweaters, order a meal in restaurant (as it gradually fills with water).  “Blue” Gene Tyranny’s musical score, witty and haunting, adds another essential element to this richly textured work.

Flip Side opened as workshop production at Smith College in October of 2007, and received its international premiere at the Csokonai Szinhaz in Debrecen, Hungary in May of 2008.  This is the New York premiere of Flip Side.

Ellen Maddow is a founding member of the Talking Band, and has composed for and performed in most of its works.  Works that she has written include, Delicious Rivers, Painted Snake In A Painted Chair- for which she received a 2003 OBIE Award- Tilt, Brown Dog is Dead, and Fern and Rose.  Ellen has also written the text and music for five pieces about the avant-garde housewife, Betty Suffer.  She has written the scores for Belize, Star Messengers, Black Milk, The Plumber's Helper, New Cities  (all produced by The Talking Band), The Parrot (co-produced with The Flea Theatre) 1969 Terminal 1996  (directed by Joseph Chaikin) and Home/Wire Walking for Risa Jaraslow and Dancers. She was a member of the Open Theater and has performed with Otrabanda Company.  Ellen received the 1999 Frederick Loewe Award in Musical Theater (along with librettist, Paul Zimet).

Paul Zimet is the Artistic Director of the Talking Band.  Music-theater works that he has written and directed include: Imminence, Belize, The Parrot, Star Messengers, Bitterroot, Party Time, Black Milk Quartet, These works have premiered in New York City at La MaMa, E.T.C., The Flea Theater, and PS 122, and have toured in the United States, Italy, Canada, Chile, and Moscow.    Paul received a 2003 Village Voice OBIE Award for his direction of The Talking Band production of Painted Snake in a Painted Chair, and also three OBIE Awards for his work with the Open Theater and the Winter Project, both directed by Joseph Chaikin.

Anna Kiraly  is a visual artist and designer residing in NYC. Recent and past projects include production design and video for FLIP SIDE (Talking Band), THE SEPARATION at the Walker Art Center with Bobby Previte, costumes for DARKLING (AOP), KAFKA FRAGMENTS with Peter Sellars at Zankel Hall, production design for ISABELLA, CHEKHOV LIZARDBRAIN and PAY UP with the Pig Iron Company. She received the Arts Link Grant (SOROS Foundation), the NEA/TCG Program for Designers (2003-2005) and is currently on a TCG New Generations program with the Talking Band. Her design work was included in this year’s Prague Quadrennial / US team. Her visual work has been featured among other venues by LMCC and The Drawing Center. She created her own visual puppet piece SLOW ASCENT and UFO IN K at St. Ann’s Warehouse (Dan Hurlin’s Puppet Lab) both of which won the Henson Foundation’s support.

“Blue” Gene Tyranny’s  theater and dance collaborations include works with the Talking Band, Pat Oleszko (Nora's Art, 10 film scores), dancers Timothy Buckley (Proximology, Breakneck Hotel, the PBS-TV short, Endance, etc.), Rocky Bornstein (Labor of Love), the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (The History of Collage), the Creach/Koester Company's I Witness (1995), live electronic music for Stefa Zawerucha's The Black Box (1993) and Curve Ahead (1994), and many of the Otrabanda Company's plays including Brain Café, Re Room and Simpatico. He received a Composer Award at the Bessies (NY Dance and Performance Awards) in 1988, and a Composer Fellowship from the NY Foundation for the Arts in 1989. Tyranny has produced, recorded and performed on many albums of other composers' music (Laurie Anderson's "Strange Angels", David Behrman's On the Other Ocean, John Cage's "Cheap Imitation" and "Empty Words", etc.) and he composed the harmonies and piano improvisations for Robert Ashley's opera-for-television "Perfect Lives" (Channel Four, London). He has created over 40 soundtracks for film and video, collaborating on projects with video artists Kenn Beckman and Kit Fitzgerald.

Ralph Lee is the Artistic Director of Mettawee Theater Company.  He creates masks, puppets and larger-than-life figures for theater and dance companies, including the New York Shakespeare Festival, Lincoln Center Repertory Theatre, the Living Theatre, the Metropolitan Opera, the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, Shari Lewis and Saturday Night Live (he created the Land Shark). Ralph Lee founded the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in 1974 and directed it for 12 years. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine since 1985. Mr. Lee has taught at many colleges and universities. He is currently a member of the faculty at NYU. Awards and fellowships include: two Obie Awards, a DTW Bessie Award, two American Theatre Wing Design Awards, a New York State Governor's Arts Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He was the Jim Henson Artist-in-Residence at UMD in 2007-08.

Special Benefit Performance of FLIP SIDE on Wednesday, Oct 1 at 7:30pm; tickets $50.  Followed by Gala Party with Guest Performance by Peter Samelson.

Tickets are $20.  Online ticketing at www.smarttix.com or 212-868-4444 or at The Connelly Theatre box office 1/2 hour before showtimes.

Opening week promotion: Two tickets for the price of a single ticket.

Hungarian Cultural Center promotion: $5 off the ticket price with promotion code: gazebo