Nice to meet you, what do you do?

12 Last Songs is part live exhibition, part epic performance. It’s about work and how we spend our time. Making a living. Finding your passion. Watching the clock. From midday to midnight on Saturday, January 17, real workers from New York City will perform paid shifts on stage, in front of a live audience. There are no actors. A builder might build a wall, a hairdresser might cut someone’s hair, a chef might prepare a meal. We’ll find out what they do, and how they see themselves in the world…

30 workers. 12 hours. Made for and with the people of NYC. 12 Last Songs frames the rhythms of the city through the people who make it work. There will be just 12 versions of 12 Last Songs taking place around the world. New York City is number 9. 

PRACTICAL INFO

12 Last Songs is unscripted, and therefore we don’t know what subjects might arise during the performance. It is important to note that we cannot guarantee what might be discussed.

12 Last Songs is a durational performance that does not have a conventional seating plan or reserved seating. Audiences will be situated on the stage as well as in the auditorium, where the performance is taking place. There will be seating offering different views, perspectives and sight-lines, and you will be able to choose, subject to occupancy, where you’d like to sit.

Advance Tickets
A limited number of tickets will be available for advance purchase. All other tickets to 12 Last Songs will be sold at the door.

If you have purchased an advance ticket and the performance is at capacity when you arrive, you will be asked to wait for a short time before entering the main space. We do not anticipate that you will have to wait for very long, and for the majority of the day we expect that there will be no wait at all for ticket holders.

Tickets on the Day
Tickets can be purchased in person at the La MaMa box office any time throughout the 12-hour performance day on a first-come, first-served basis. Please note that if the room is at capacity, ticket purchases will be paused at the discretion of the front of house staff until the capacity has returned to a manageable level. Once you have purchased a ticket, you can choose to stay until the performance ends at 12 midnight or leave whenever you wish.

General Guidance for Visiting 12 Last Songs
When planning your visit, please bear in mind that we anticipate peak times being around 1 – 3 PM and 7 – 10 PM. As tickets are valid for the full 12 hours, these peak times may change; we will be updating our social media platforms with information about capacity on the day. You will still be able to attend during these times, but you may be asked to wait for a short time before entering the main space so that we can safely manage capacity.

Whether you purchase an advance ticket or a ticket at the door, you are free to attend the performance at whatever time you’d like. You are free to stay for as long as you wish. The performance runs from 12 noon until 12 midnight.

Once you have entered, you may leave and re-enter as many times as you wish. With public safety in mind, however, we have identified a maximum capacity for the room, meaning that at peak times you may be asked to wait for a short time before re-entering the main space.

During this time, you may leave the auditorium for short breaks (i.e. bathroom) without needing to wait in the queue again. If you choose to leave for a longer period, you will only be able to re-enter by joining the queue and waiting for a space to become available. (You will not need to pay again on re-entry).

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Quarantine is an award-winning ensemble of artists and producers making cross-disciplinary work that explores what it means to live right now. Founded in 1998 in Manchester, UK, they create and tour projects around the world that are both intimate and immediate in their relationships with people and global in their reference and scope. Quarantine has an international reputation for intellectually rigorous, socially progressive and formally inventive art that questions who gets seen, whose stories are told and who stands in for whom – questions about representation lie at the heart of their work.

CREDITS

FUNDING + SUPPORT

Presented by Under the Radar, Working Theater and La MaMa.

12 Last Songs is co-commissioned by Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts; Cambridge Junction with the support of the Stobbs New Ideas Fund; and HOME. Co-produced by Transform.

It is supported by Factory International, Manchester, Arts Council England and The Rank Foundation.

SOCIALS