Articulating the Arts:
A Thousand Words

TWO NIGHTS ONLY!
March 17th & 18th - 8pm
Theatrelab, 357 West 36th Street

Join us for an evening of
Art inspiring Art!

Articulating the Arts
uses works of art as a springboard and inspiration for writers and their imaginations to bring to life the soul of the piece they are moved by. Sculpture, painting, music, dance, fashion, architecture, poetry: each a genre unto itself, and allowing them to be the germ of creation brought to life through words and the living embodiment of art through the magic of theatre.

For this edition,
Articulating the Arts: A Thousand Words,
our playwrights are reacting to classical paintings. Company members - playwrights, actors, designers - are featured in these whirlwind episodes.

The Press Release

                                            ARTICULATE THEATRE COMPANY
                                        “Articulating the Arts: A Thousand Words”

CONTACT: Cat Parker                      WHAT: Articulating the Arts: A Thousand Words
[email protected]                 WHERE: Theaterlab, 357 W. 36th St, 3rd Floor
917.715.0917                                         WHEN: March 17th and 18th, 2014, 8pm

Articulate Theatre Company is proud to be kicking off its 2014 season with Articulating the Arts, a riff on the world of classic painting, on Monday, March 17th and Tuesday, March 18th, 2014, as a guest production at Theaterlab, at 357 W. 36th St., 3rd floor. Tickets start at $25, with special packages available. Tickets are available online at www.articulatetheatre.com, and can also be purchased at the door. Running time is 2 hours inclusive of intermission.

Articulating the Arts is a fundraising series based on the notion that great art inspires beyond its own medium. We are using works of art as a springboard and inspiration for writers to bring to life the soul of the piece they are moved by. Sculpture, painting, music, dance, fashion, architecture, poetry: each a genre unto itself, they now become the germ of creation brought to life through the magic of theatre. For this edition, Articulating the Arts: A Thousand Words, our playwrights are reacting to classical paintings. Art changes and elevates our world, and ATC is committed to that mission. The evening consists of nine short vignettes - an inspired mix of humor, insight, and drama. Each picture is worth “a thousand words,” but we kept it to short scenes instead!

This event will feature the work of master painters Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Lunch with the Boating Party) Vincent van Gogh (Old Man in Sorrow on the Threshold of Eternity); Gustav Klimt (The Virgin); Diego Rivera (Detroit Industry); Artemisia Gentileschi (Judith Slaying Holofernes); Johannes Vermeer (Girl with Pearl Earring); Edouard Manet (A Bar at the Folies-Bergere); Vanessa Bell (Still Life on Corner of a Mantelpiece).

Playwrights include Allan Knee (Finding Neverland, Little Women); Blayne Weaver (Weather Girl, Manic); Robin Rice Lichtig (Play Nice!, Alice in Black and White); Jamie Neumann (They Call Me Jack); Robert Verlaque (Icarus Sings, Endurance), William Locasto (NY/XY, TEST: Do You Really Want to Know); J.D. Laurence, and Jim Biederman (Whitest Kids You Know; Kids in the Hall).

Directors include Cat Parker (Artistic Director of ATC); Katrin Hilbe (Breaking the Silence, Salome); Bob Verlaque (Jealous, You Never Can Tell); Wendy Mae Shelton (Two Hearts to Handle, Ice Cream Is For Lovers; Jamie Neumann; Akia (Hellcab, Bug) and Eric Siegel (ABC World News Tonight).

Actors include Imran Sheikh, Richard Dezmond, Kelly Zekas, Kathy Towson, Bob Jester, Jill Bianchini, Marguerite Forrest, Matthew James Ballinger, Isabelle Dungan, Julian Elfer, Amanda Prasow, Sergei Burbank, Stephanie Seward, David Palmer Brown, Carolyn Seiff, Mary Monahan, Jen McGuire, and Michael Black.

Bios for all ensemble members are located at http://www.articulatetheatre.com/our-company.html
More details on the event are located at http://www.articulatetheatre.com/ata-event-page.html

Articulate Theatre Company is an ensemble based theatre company that thrives on being storytellers and using all the elements of our craft to vibrantly bring those stories to life. ATC is committed to challenging and connecting audiences and artists with clearly structured work that is intelligent, thought-provoking and visually striking.  www.articulatetheatre.com

The Paintings That Inspired Us


INTERESTING TIDBITS ABOUT THESE PAINTINGS

Thanks to our crack research team -Liz Richards, Lisa Barri and Karen Ann Ledger-
here's some items of interest about the paintings.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Le Dejeunerdes Canotiers (Lunch with the Boating Party) (1881): Renoir is seated in the lower right, and his future wife, a seamstress, is playing with the dog on the left. Caused a huge controversy in the 1950s when it was "cleaned," lost lots of color, and the Louvre actually refused to believe it was an actual Renoir.

Gustav Klimt, "The Virgin" (1913): The painting depicts a sleeping woman with 6 possible selves around her. The swirls represent the cycles of life and rebirth.

Diego Rivera, Detroit Industry (1933) The Detroit Industry murals are a series of frescoes consisting of 27 panels depicting industry at the Ford Motor Company. The series of murals, taken as a whole, represents the idea that all actions and ideas are one. There had been controversy surrounding Rivera’s Marxist philosophy, and many who believed his political views were depicted in his work, Detroit Industry. Critics viewed the work as Marxist propaganda, blasphemous, vulgar, and un-American. These critics wanted the Detroit Industry panels removed, but the controversy caused masses of people to flock the art exhibit, and the work remained.

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with Pearl Earring (1665) This is one of Vermeer’s masterworks and as the name implies uses a pearl earring for a focal point. The girl looks over her shoulder, with seductive eyes, mouth parted, uninhibitedly, as though hoping to see who is standing behind her. This draws the viewer into the picture, suggesting that he is the one who has made the girl turn her head. Yet, her long, hanging turban swings towards us indicating that she’s forever turning away, and saying “no” to our affections. Vermeer’s fresh colors, virtuoso technique, and subtle rendering of light effects are very important in creating her mysterious and engrossing effect.


Edouard Manet, "A Bar at the Folies-Bergere" (1882) This painting was Manet’s last work. It depicts a scene in the Follies Bergere nightclub in Paris. The central figure stands before a mirror, yet this point has been debated by critics, accusing Manet of lack of perspective. There is an optical illusion of sorts. Clearly there’s the large gold frame of a mirror. It is said that we the viewers, stand opposite the barmaid on the other side of the counter and, looking at the reflection in the mirror, see exactly what she sees. The painting is rich in details which provide clues to social class and milieu. The woman at the bar is a real person, known as Suzon, who worked at the Follies Bergere. The oranges were Manet’s symbol for prostitution, and identifies the barmaid as a prostitute. The feet in the upper left hand corner belonged to a trapeze artist who performed above the patrons.
Vincent Van Gogh, "Old Man in Sorrow, on the Threshold of Eternity" (1890) Also known as "At Eternity's Gate," "Sorrowing Old Man," and labeled "one of the best known depictions of human sadness in all of art." Van Gogh himself said of it: "It seems to me that a painter has a duty to try to put an idea into his work. I was trying to say this in this print - but I can’t say it as beautifully, as strikingly as reality, of which this is only a dim reflection seen in a dark mirror - that it seems to me that one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the existence of 'something on high' in which Millet believed, namely in the existence of a God and an eternity, is the unutterably moving quality that there can be in the expression of an old man like that, without his being aware of it perhaps, as he sits so quietly in the corner of his hearth. At the same time something precious, something noble, that can’t be meant for the worms. This is far from all theology — simply the fact that the poorest woodcutter, heath farmer or miner can have moments of emotion and mood that give him a sense of an eternal home that he is close to."

Artemisia Gentileschi - Judith Slaying Holofernes (1620) The daughter of painter Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia trained in her father’s workshop and quickly earned acclaim, completing her first signed painting, a dramatic yet sensitive rendering of Susanna and the Elders, when she was just 17. At the age of 18, she was raped by one of her father’s colleagues, Agostino Tassi. He was convicted in a trial a year later after Artemisia was tortured to “confirm” her testimony, but Tassi was never punished. Within months of the conclusion of the trial, Artemisia was quickly married and moved to Florence with her new husband. The brutal depiction in the monumental Judith Slaying Holofernes is often interpreted as a painted revenge for the rape. Unlike other artists who focused on the ideals of beauty and courage evoked by the Jewish heroine Judith, Gentileschi chose to paint the biblical story’s gruesome climax, producing a picture that is nothing short of terrifying. The startling naturalism of the scene owes much to the influence of Caravaggio; Artemisia followed his technique of painting directly from life and employing sharp contrasts of light and dark. The power of the scene, however, is all her own, and the painting endures as a masterpiece of Baroque art.

Vanessa Bell - Still Life Corner Mantlepiece (1914) This mantelpiece was in Vanessa Bell’s house at 46 Gordon Square in London. The objects on it include handmade paper flowers from the Omega Workshops. The low viewpoint suggests that Bell painted this picture sitting down. The fractured and abstracted forms and highly keyed colours show that Bell was familiar with recent developments in France, including Fauvism and Cubism.