Live From Mount Olympus is back!
We’re thrilled to announce that our Greek Myth Podcast, Live from Mount Olympus is returning for a second season on April 19. Read more about it here.
Press
Live from Mount Olympus in the Press
“Between the rivalries and the affairs, it’s everything tweens catch between the morning bell and sixth period, with the added bonus of fantastical landscapes and magical happenings. But there is also heft to these stories, which represent a belief system and vision of the world that no longer exists as a reality for a community of people, but nevertheless survives.” New York Times
Actors André De Shields and Divine Garland sit down with Allison Stewart in All of It WNYC to discuss their work on Live from Mount Olympus. All of It WNYC
Wired ranks Live from Mount Olympus “Top 12 Best Podcast for Kids“
The National Herald features Live from Mount Olympus. “It has been such a gift to, within these COVID times of isolation, still be able to visit worlds new and old through the prevailing gift of the imagination and the willingness of everyone to bring their most optimistic and joyful selves to the project,” said Zhailon Levingston, Co-Director. “I hope it touches every young listener who hears it.”
Deadline and Playbill announce Live from Mount Olympus‘ launch!
Quince in the News!
photo by Catherine Krebs
We are delighted by the write-ups that our Petri Project, Quince received. It was a delight to work with Camilo Quiroz-Vazquez and Ellpetha Tsivicos on their work and exploring the ways we can safely enjoy live theater during the pandemic. Check out press articles below:
American Theater Magazine: https://www.americantheatre.org/2020/08/26/how-i-broke-my-theatre-fast-with-a-celebration-called-quince/
BroadwayWorld.com: https://www.broadwayworld.com/brooklyn/article/BWW-Review-In-QUINCE-Live-Theatre-Blooms-at-The-Peoples-Garden-in-Bushwick-20200823
Token Theater Friends: https://tokentheatrefriends.com/2020/08/23/why-celebrating-quince-during-a-pandemic-requires-a-community-of-theatre-warriors/
The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/theater/quince-beast-visit-outdoor-theater.html?referringSource=articleShare
Mission Drift named one of the top 50 shows in the 21st Century!
It’s been a moment since we last performed our hit-musical Mission Drift. However, we were thrilled to see that The Guardian named it one of the 50 best theatre shows in the 21st century. Check it out (and the other works that made the list) here.
Responses to 2019 US Tour of Anything That Gives Off Light
Strong and thoughtful… (ensemble and music) combine to create an ambiance, a taste of and for Scotland and Scottishness that likely to be matched only by Forfar bridies, meat pies and very buttery shortbread.
Newsweek
Anything That Gives Off Light is both an entertainment and a thought piece that focuses on whether we are stuck in our histories, or whether we can cast off the constrictive ties and reinvent new and better histories for ourselves in the modern world.
Front Row Center
[A] pugnacious, liquor-soaked musical… The songwriting duo the Bengsons composed the eclectic array of tunes—some poppy, some folksy, all good… A rich seam of aching observations about land and soil and property.
New Yorker
When I first saw it in 2016…I found the magical adventure form of the show where we zip between Scotland and Appalachia “a fitting way to explore [something] as complex a morass as identity. Nothing is fixed. Ideas morph with time and so too must our storytelling.” With songs by the Bengsons, it is a foot-stomping journey where the characters go beyond that surface layer of who they are and start peeling back their own sense of where they come from and what home is in a smart, probing, and unique way.
Recommended by Exeunt NYC
Interviews and First-person accounts
- Jess Almasy + Reuben Joseph talk devising, identity, and the humanity on the other side of the aisle. [READ]
- Jess Almasy writes about Sex, Politics, and Regional Control and the challenges of bringing Anything That Gives Off Light to the stage. [READ]
- Davey Anderson talks to Broadway World about the show [LISTEN]
- Diep Tran and Jose Solís talk about their impressions of Anything That Gives Off Light at Joe’s Pub on Token Theatre Friends. [WATCH]
- Also, our friend Josh Groban stopped by:
Read what press had to say about Anything That Gives Off Light‘s 2016 Premiere here.
Coverage of Primer for a Failed Superpower
“…the conviction in the voices could not have been louder or clearer.”
New York Times
“Behind the Scenes of Primer for a Failed Superpower”
The Interval
“For Teen Activists, What Good Is a Protest Song?”
New Yorker Radio Hour
“Protest Songs Take Center Stage In Primer”
The Leonard Lopate Show
Want to learn more about Primer for a Failed Superpower?
Visit the Primer website.
The reviews are in for Anything That Gives Off Light
***** An astonishingly accomplished piece of work…as entertaining as it is intellectually demanding.
Fest Mag
**** A fierce poetic snapshot of two contemporary cultures linked by history.
The Scotsman
The three distinctive actors [are] perfectly matched, giving tough, intelligent performances, masking an inner warmth behind their deadpan wit.
Variety
**** Exhilarating…Raw, heartfelt and messy on several levels…Boldly theatrical.
The Stage
**** A trenchant critique of global complicity…attacks pieties about Scottish and American victimhood, drawing the line between fantasies of freedom and violent aggression.
The List
**** A whisky-fired fantasia.
Herald Scotland
The gauzy dream-world of their storytelling where we can zip from West Virginia to Scotland makes this adventure magical and messy. The labyrinthine format of the show is a fitting way to explore as complex a morass as identity. Nothing is fixed. Ideas morph with time and so too must our storytelling.
Exeunt
**** A true celebration of Scottish culture, humour, music and storytelling.
Edinburgh Festivals Magazine
Want to learn more about Anything That Gives Off Light?
View more production and rehearsal photos on Facebook.
Listen to music from the show and an interview with Jess and Sandy on BBC Radio’s Janice Forsyth Show.
Read more about the show in these features from The Guardian, Fest Magazine, Herald Scotland, The Scotsman, and The List.
Performances run thru August 26. All performances are SOLD OUT.
RoosevElvis in Boston: the reviews are in!
The Boston Globe:
“Funny, thoughtful, affecting…the excellent performances of actors Libby King and Kristen Sieh, and [Rachel] Chavkin’s clever direction, carry the day.”
WBUR The Artery:
“Strange, charming and highly likable…a straight-ahead, full-tilt voyage through man- (and woman-) hood.”
TheaterMania:
“Not your ordinary take on history or gender…[an] imaginative, theatrical collage.”
Boston Events Insider:
“Weirdly brilliant…surprisingly emotional…wildly entertaining.”
A limited number of seats and standing room have been released for our final 13 performances at A.R.T. Book now!
RoosevElvis London reviews are in!
★★★★
“An exhilaratingly bumpy ride into the myth-making landscape of America…The pleasure is in the piece’s highly developed sense of the ridiculous…It’s a joyride into the construction of identity, and one with unexpected emotional resonance.”
★★★★
“Combines witty cultural literacy with a tender intimacy… anchored by two performances of enormous conviction – a technically dazzling one from Sieh and a subtle, profoundly emotional one from King that lays bare the soul of America as a land full of heroes that is also a very lonely place to be.”
★★★★
“The juxtaposition of President and popstar encapsulates something vital about masculinity…Image is key too: the way we present to the world, the identities we construct online, and our failure to measure up to our sense of self or our sense of others. It is, amongst other things, one of the best portraits of depression I’ve ever seen.”
“Two brilliant comic performances, born from rigorous research and intense acts of gender-bending empathy, make this a surprisingly easy sell from the get-go…when a company as talented as The TEAM serve an all-you-can-eat-feast, it’s worth adjusting your waistband.”
If there was only one theatre company making work in the world, it should be @theteamplays. #RoosevElvis @royalcourt
— Alexander Ferris (@AlFerris) October 24, 2015
#RoosevElvis @royalcourt is clever, silly, epic, intimate, funny, serious, quietly heartbreaking and quietly beautifully hopeful. ADORED it.
— Corinne Furness (@DisAgg) October 22, 2015
Sorrynotsorry I LOVED @theteamplays #RoosevElvis @royalcourt last night. Properly funny, imaginative and quite, quite mad.
— Martha Rose Wilson (@martharosew) October 27, 2015
Adored @theteamplays RoosevElvis tonight. Subversive hero drag soaked in all American beer & one inspiring road trip.
— LAURA NORMAN (@Cassette_Girl) October 24, 2015
Photo: Helen Murray
So this happened…
Described as a “hunk-a-hunk-a burnin’ waste,” RoosevElvis makes an unexpected appearance as #26 on Senator Tom Coburn’s annual Wastebook.
Clearly, this means we’ve arrived.
View the entire “report Washington doesn’t want you to read” here.