NYC's Laboratory for Performance

Holly Hughes brings WELL OF HORNINESS back to NYC!

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:09:57 -0400

May 8 & 9, 2013 at 7:30pm

Holly Hughes brings her famous and infamous WELL OF HORNINESS back to NYC for a 30th year anniversary production!

A broad and campy romp featuring broads who were run out of camps, this sapphic spectacle is the unholy love child of Radclyffe Hall on acid and Charles Ludlam on estrogen. The play has had numerous productions every year since its premiere, some times to acclaim, like winning the People’s Choice at the Orlando Fringe Festival, and sometimes to outrage, as when it was banned in 2009 at the College of Staten Island.

Buy tickets HERE!

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie St
New York, NY 10002
(212) 219.0736

OPENING NIGHT of The FURTHER ADVENTURES of the ACCIDENTAL PUNDETTE

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 14:46:57 -0500

“A Rocking Comedy. Hilarious. Ballsy. Outspoken. “ - New Yorker

Nancy Giles’ one-woman show, The Further Adventures of the Accidental Pundette, opens TONIGHT, February 1, 7:30pm at Dixon Place!

Get tickets here and use discount code NANCY10 for $10 tix THIS WEEKEND ONLY!

Nancy Giles in FURTHER ADVENTURES of the ACCIDENTAL...

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 18:05:06 -0500

Nancy Giles in FURTHER ADVENTURES of the ACCIDENTAL PUNDETTE

Dixon Place
February 1 - 23, 2013
Get tix here

Dixon Place is proud to be co-presenting Ruff for P.S....

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:34:01 -0500

Dixon Place is proud to be co-presenting Ruff for P.S. 122’s COIL Festival !

Peggy Shaw has always had a host of crooners, lounge singers, movie stars, rock and roll bands, and eccentric family members living inside her. Ruff is a tribute to those who have kept Shaw company over the last 68 years, a lament for the absence of those who disappeared into the dark holes left behind by her recent stroke, and a celebration that her brain is able to fill the blank green screens with new insight.

Opening night is this Thursday, January 10, at 7:30pm

Get tickets at the official COIL website

splitbritches.wordpress.com

SANDY CAN’T STOP DANDY! Did you miss your dose of...

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 10:40:27 -0500

SANDY CAN’T STOP DANDY!

Did you miss your dose of decadent debauchery last month?
Never fear:

Dandy Darkly’s Halloween Variety of the Damned

has been RESCHEDULED as

DANDY DARKLY’S COMA: A POST-EVERYTHING VARIETY EVENT
Thursday, November 29 at 10:00pm

Celebrate ThankSandyWeen at Dixon Place
with Dandy Darkly & his cast of randy rabblerousers!

If you’re all a-quiver with anticipation, check out this interview in EDGE NYC with the haunting host himself

Hop on board our September dance commission as choreographer...

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:45:57 -0400

Hop on board our September dance commission as choreographer Ephrat Asherie takes you on a ride like you’ve never had. New York’s most iconic experience, the subway, comes to life as a world premiere dance experience at Dixon Place. Opens Thursday, September 20 at 7:30 for 6 performances only.

The 21st Annual HOT! Festival of Queer Performance kicks off...

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 11:54:00 -0400

The 21st Annual HOT! Festival of Queer Performance kicks off July 1 with 4 weeks of queertastic theater, music, dance, and any and all things QUEER! Don’t miss Dan Fishback, Cole Escola, Marga Gomez, Carmelita Tropicana, Jessica Halem, Rebecca Nagle, Citizen Reno, D’Lo, Elizabeth Whitney, Lea Robinson, Victoria Libertore, Jack Shamblin, Dandy Darkly, and a whole galaxy of super nova LGBTQ stars! Plus the Dixon Place Lounge will be serving lots of special cool HOT! cocktails and many shows are free. Check us out @ hotfestival.org

Lunatic Cunning is a hit! - Backstage...

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:30:00 -0400

Lunatic Cunning is a hit! - Backstage says…”Charmingly Magical. Silly. A Privilege to Watch. A Pro In Action. and A Plant That Tells Dirty Jokes!” Get your tix now at DixonPlace.org - only 4 performances left!

toqoffice: I will be doing… “STEVE HAYES; TIRED OLD QUEEN at...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 18:54:34 -0400

toqoffice:

I will be doing…

“STEVE HAYES; TIRED OLD QUEEN at the MOVIES: LIVE!”

Place: DIXON PLACE :161 Christie Street in Manhattan

Date: Wednesday, March 14TH at 7:30.

FREE ASDMISSION

Contact: www.dixonplace.org

An impromptu evening of comedy, gossip, some facts and endless talk regarding certain celebrities and countless films. It’s free, it’s upstairs in the Cabaret and it promises to be a ball, so come on down!

Lunatic Cunning opens April 6 and it is the most entertaining...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:51:00 -0400

Lunatic Cunning opens April 6 and it is the most entertaining and outrageous thing you’ll see this Spring! Tickets at www.dixon place.org

In this exciting new international collaboration, Tracie...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:19:00 -0500

In this exciting new international collaboration, Tracie Stanfield’s stunning NYC based SYNTHESES Dance company presents with Simona Ficosecco’s Italian LUNA company. SYNTHESIS Dance Project celebrates athletic ability, technical precision and passionate performances. The company delivers artistry, expression and vitality with magnetic energy and expert performances. Firmly grounded in classical technique and pulling from all styles of movement, the company strives to challenge the boundaries of any singular dance genre. Wednesday, February 15th @ 7:30.

Written and performed by Nicholas Gorham, musical arrangement...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:06:00 -0500

Written and performed by Nicholas Gorham, musical arrangement by Victor F. DeMendonca Torres, additional direction by Matt Nasser.Featuring Charlotte Miller and Bradley Kal Hagen. Mixing a futurist style of poetry, iambic pentameter, prose, and music, Gorham takes a look at how the individual copes with trauma and the moments of clarity that pepper the descent of the mind. Inspired by Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, God Free The Queen explores the artists own experiences of loss, love and catharsis. Monday, January 30 @ 7:30. $10 advance / $15 @ door.

Suzzy Roche, Loudon Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, and Lucy...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:09:49 -0500

Suzzy Roche, Loudon Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, and Lucy Wainwright belt out an amazing tune at last night celebrating the release of Suzzy’s new novel, Wayward Saints. A truly lovely night of music, words, and art.

Don’t miss Vernon Reid’s Artificial Afrika - A Tale...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:39:00 -0500

Don’t miss Vernon Reid’s Artificial Afrika - A Tale of Lost Cities. Fridays and Saturdays in February @ 7:30. Dixon Place is going to ROCK during Black History Month.

Leakey’s Ladies opens next week! Click here for more...

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:08:49 -0500

Leakey’s Ladies opens next week! Click here for more info.

5 Questions for Sibyl Kempson by Tim Ranney

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:10:00 -0500

What was it about Victoria Nelson’s book The Secret Life of Puppets that inspired you to develop The Secret Death of Puppets?

That book spoke to me, in thoughts and experiences I’d thought and had all my life but had been trained not to listen or attend to. Mac Wellman handed it to me one day when I was in his office at Brooklyn College and I started reading it very slowly. I felt somehow vindicated. Immediately! As if I had known this book in some vague way all along, but could never have articulated it. You’ve got to pick up the book yourself to see what I mean. It’s very academic, but it’s deeper than academia. It reminds. And, in a practical sense, her bibliography set me on a path of many doors which I am still opening. I felt, and still feel, very grateful. I was reading a good amount of Scandinavian and German plays at the time as well, and writing irrational responses to all of it in the form of dialogue. It was Mac who apprised me of the idea that these dia- and illogical responses were the start of my next play. And the idea of reminding about something that we don’t recognize but seems somehow familiar is endlessly intriguing to me.

There definitely seems to be a community of puppet fans obsessed with the goth, grotesque, and death. Are they sad or disturbed in some way?

I’ve known a lot of those people and they often seemed to me very gentle people, with a lot of sad feelings, and I like sadness a lot. It’s a pure emotion, not poisonous on its own. So they are sort of living within a realm of sadness. But there was a guy in college who had a lot of swords and even built himself a throne out of steel in his dorm room, and had a tremendous speaker system and would blast like CRAZY music super duper devil worshipping music. And he had a lot of drug stuff going on, sort of Peter Gatien style, lot of girls hanging around and trouble surrounding. That was all maybe a little much for me, although I like remembering it because so much creative energy went into it, the persona and the aesthetic. It was a complete world. And there also used to be these amazing people - perhaps you remember them - who used to go around the East Village in total period Victorian/Edwardian wear, with monacles and bustles and walking sticks and they were very pale and peaked in the face. It was like seeing ghosts. I don’t even know if they did regular business or commerce like ATM’s or Key Foods or subway tokens. I only ever saw them wandering around the town, with small sacks of heavy coins, never speaking. It was silent and total immersion in the time period, and within an idea of death. Which brings me back to your question. I don’t think it’s healthy to be too fixated or obsessed on anything. But we are all both drawn to and afraid of things that are grotesque and deadly or deathly, uncanny (like puppets or really any human simulacra) or even just the unexplained. If you’re bored at a brunch, just ask the people you’re with if they have any good ghost stories. And one of the main points of Victoria Nelson’s book is that there is a deep-seated reason for those feelings of dread, aversion and fascination that is connected to our early religious experience. Not early like childhood, but early like Antiquity. We feel weird around puppets because somewhere in our consciousness we are aware that we used to worship them. Not as symbols or representations even, but the objects themselves, just for themselves. I mean - WHOA! and - WHAO! Carl Jung talks a lot about it. How we all remember on some level, and share the memory. VN looks at how it comes out in our popular culture, because empirical science doesn’t allow for it to have truth, and neither do our modern religion nor religious practices. We feel safer with everything explained, and with everything we can’t explain stuffed into a familiar and easily-repeatable narrative structure. Chucky. I’m mostly thinking of Chucky.

In what ways do puppets or inanimate objects convey messages to an audience that actors can’t?

Well, the inanimate always reflects, doesn’t it. So whatever messages we are gathering ultimately come from inside of our own selves. Human actors in the West are trained to deliver a text in a certain way that will tell or signal the audience what to think and feel about that text that they are saying. It is essentially the model of advertising, plus a bunch of empirical psychology, mostly Freudian. At least this is my observation. So we are accustomed to being told what to think and feel as an audience, as students, as viewers, as users/consumers. We abide by all the codes, like “Fight,” “Cry,” or “Sexy.” “Buy.” We understand, and consent to those codes. When we aren’t told what to think/feel, we are forced to converse and commune our interior selves. It’s disconcerting. People always want to know what things mean. They want to be told what it means. They want it to be easy and concise and digestible, but that won’t really help us navigate the actual events that happen in our lives. I think that in watching the performances of puppets and objects we have more power and flexibility - and responsibility - to decide what things mean for ourselves.

Your work seems to deliberately confound and challenge the audience. What do you say to people that don’t understand your work or don’t want to invest time in trying to figure it out?

“Go home and watch your TV. Watch Sex and the City. Then go shopping.” Or: “Go out into the woods, all by yourself without any technology. Just stay there for the whole day and all night. Then come back.” Or: “Go sit with someone while they receive a chemotherapy treatment. Keep them company. Then drive them home.”

What is your measure of success and how do you know when you’ve achieved your objective?

I really like when I hear people say, “I was having a hard time figuring it out/understanding what was going on, but then I just relaxed and gave over to it” and then that either they enjoyed it in some way or found themselves experiencing or perceiving the play or the events or the images or the patterns or the language or the rhythm or the atmosphere in some way they are not used to experiencing or perceiving theater shows, and then I love even more when they offer some bit of what it ended up meaning for them, something subjective, something from inside. Because then I know that they decided what it meant for themselves.

Click here for reviews and tickets for Sibyl Kempson’s The Secret Death of Puppets at Dixon Place playing through November 19th.

Sibyl Kempson’s play, The Secret Death of Puppets opened...

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:55:35 -0400

Sibyl Kempson’s play, The Secret Death of Puppets opened last night and people left the theatre totally mesmerized and even a little spooked. It’s much more than theater - a living, moving visual art installation. Tix @ http://dixonplace.org/html/SibylKempson_Nov11.html

Oystein Baadsvik tonight!

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:15:49 -0400

Oystein Baadsvik tonight!

The Secret Death of Puppets opens Thursday!

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:13:16 -0400

The Secret Death of Puppets opens Thursday!

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30 AT 11:30AM Created and performed by Chris...

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:44:20 -0400

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30 AT 11:30AM

Created and performed by Chris Wells with the Secret City Singers and very special guests. Part revival, part salon, part show, these monthly services feature performance, visual art, music, food & literature, designed to inspire, excite & invigorate the creative community of NYC. Child care is available!

NYC's Laboratory for Performance

Holly Hughes brings WELL OF HORNINESS back to NYC!

OPENING NIGHT of The FURTHER ADVENTURES of the ACCIDENTAL PUNDETTE

Nancy Giles in FURTHER ADVENTURES of the ACCIDENTAL...

Dixon Place is proud to be co-presenting Ruff for P.S....

SANDY CAN’T STOP DANDY! Did you miss your dose of...

SANDY CAN’T STOP DANDY!

Dandy Darkly’s Halloween Variety of the Damned

DANDY DARKLY’S COMA: A POST-EVERYTHING VARIETY EVENTThursday, November 29 at 10:00pm

Hop on board our September dance commission as choreographer...

The 21st Annual HOT! Festival of Queer Performance kicks off...

Lunatic Cunning is a hit! - Backstage...

toqoffice: I will be doing… “STEVE HAYES; TIRED OLD QUEEN at...

Lunatic Cunning opens April 6 and it is the most entertaining...

In this exciting new international collaboration, Tracie...

Written and performed by Nicholas Gorham, musical arrangement...

Suzzy Roche, Loudon Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, and Lucy...

Don’t miss Vernon Reid’s Artificial Afrika - A Tale...

Leakey’s Ladies opens next week! Click here for more...

5 Questions for Sibyl Kempson by Tim Ranney

Sibyl Kempson’s play, The Secret Death of Puppets opened...

Oystein Baadsvik tonight!

The Secret Death of Puppets opens Thursday!

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30 AT 11:30AM Created and performed by Chris...

DANDY DARKLY’S COMA: A POST-EVERYTHING VARIETY EVENT
Thursday, November 29 at 10:00pm