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Marcella Murray, David Neumann and Tei Blow for Advanced Beginner Group
Rich With History
and other stuff you say at a haunted house
Presented by Mabou Mines
photo: Tei Blow
Somewhere between the cargo hold of a spaceship and a craft services table, a film crew setting up a shot immerse themselves in a dance of multiple takes through haunted spaces, ideas, and interactions.
Rich With History and other stuff you say at a haunted house extends the Advanced Beginner Group ensemble’s exploration of race and relationship mixed with sly humor, unexpected dances and plantation tours. Set somewhere between the cargo hold of a spaceship and a craft services table on a film shoot, David and Marcella find themselves onstage again in a cycle that has become more ritual than accident. This time, they are a crew setting up a shot in an imagined film, slowly immersing themselves in a dance of multiple takes. Is it a family dramedy? A real-estate tour? A horror film? Joined by fellow crew members Julie J and Camellia Bayle-Spence, the cast leads us on a tour of haunted spaces, ideas and interactions while never leaving the stage.
Different performers join the ‘takes’, playing and exchanging multiple roles, allowing additional layers of impact to emerge. As they invent dances to each other’s Spotify histories, David and Marcella continue a decade-long conversation about race in a space that is always shifting, but where the inextricable horror and euphoria of the unacknowledged is always there in its favorite chair, a stowaway in the basement of the spaceship. They grapple with the eerie and destructive repetition of inequality and aggressions, micro- or not…. or maybe they just stare at each other in silence, embarrassed to have forgotten their next line. We can laugh at ourselves here, right? Right?
SCHEDULE
Wednesday, January 8 @ 7pm
Thursday, January 9 @ 6pm
Friday, January 10 @ 6pm
Saturday, January 11 @ 2pm
Saturday, January 11 @ 5:30pm
Sunday, January 12 @ 2pm
Tuesday, January 14 @ 6pm
Wednesday, January 15 @ 6pm
Thursday, January 16 @ 6pm
Run time: 75 minutes
VENUE
Mabou Mines @122 CC
150 First Avenue
New York, NY 10009
Access:
Wheelchair accessible, contact box office with specific access needs questions.
CREDITS
Co-Creators
Marcella Murray, David Neumann, and Tei Blow
Cast & Crew
Performers: Marcella Murray, David Neumann, Julie J, Camellia Bayle-Spence
Sound Design: Sid Diamond
Video Design: Camellia Bayle-Spence
Lighting Design: Grace Gilmore
Costume Design: Montana Levi Blanco
Production Manager: Janet Clancy
Stage Manager: Aliyah Curry
Producer: Boo Froebel
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
David Neumann’s work as a freelance choreographer, director and performer includes a wide range of projects and disciplines. Since 1999, Neumann has worked behind the scenes to craft plays, operas, films and multi-disciplinary performances. From avant-garde theater to blockbuster films, classic opera to new musicals, David’s diverse experience has given him a unique ability to articulate ideas through performers’ bodies. He has worked with stars from the ballet, film and avant garde worlds, as well as those never having stepped on a stage, learning valuable lessons from each. Neumann has many years of teaching experience working at Juilliard, NYU, Princeton and Yale and is currently a tenured professor in the Theatre Department at Sarah Lawrence College. He has received three Lucille Lortel Award nominations and one Fichandler for his work on Cabaret at Arena Stage. He is the Artistic Director of Advanced Beginner Group, a multi-disciplinary performance company, which has been awarded three Bessie Awards. He is a 2019 Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, and Tony Award nominee, as well as the recipient of the 2019 Chita Rivera Award for Choreography for his work on the Broadway musical, Hadestown. Recent projects include the Broadway musical Swept Away and choreography and coaching for White Noise, starring Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver.
Marcella Murray is a New York-based theater artist from Augusta, Georgia. She is a playwright, performer, collaborator, and puppeteer. Murray’s work is heavily inspired by the observed ways in which people tend to segregate and reconnect. Her work tends to focus on themes of identity within a community and (hopefully) forward momentum in the face of trauma. Performances include The Slow Room, a piece directed by Annie Dorsen at Performance Space New York; a workshop reading of Ocean Filibuster which was co-created by the team Pearl D’Amour (Lisa D’Amour and Katie Pearl) with composer Sxip Shirey at Abrons Arts Center; I Don’t Want to Interrupt You Guys, created in collaboration with Leonie Bell and Hyung Seok Jeon during RAP at Mabou Mines; New Mony created by Maria Camia at Dixon Place; and Shoot Don’t Talk at St. Ann’s Warehouse/Puppet Lab created by Andrew Murdock. Along with David Neumann, she recently co-created Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed (Obie Special Citation for Creation and Performance) which opened at Abrons Arts Center in January of 2020.
Tei Blow is a media designer, technologist and performance maker. Tei’s work has been seen at Hartford Stage, Dance Theater Workshop, PS122, Lincoln Center, The Kitchen, BAM, The Public Theater, The Broad Stage, MCA Chicago, MFA Boston, Kate Werble Gallery, Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Roundabout, The Wadsworth Atheneum, and at theaters around the world. He is the recipient of The Henry Hewes Award, NYSCA Composer’s Grant, the Bessie Award, the FCA Grants to Artists Award, and the Creative Capital Award.
CREATION + FUNDING
Co-commissioned by Carolina Performing Arts and Mabou Mines
Co-produced by Advanced Beginner Group and Mabou Mines
