ONE THOUSAND AVANT GARDE PLAYS
By Kenneth Koch

Directed and designed by Maria Pessino
Music by Roger Trefousse
Art by Larry Rivers
Lighting Design by Kameron Steele
Co-choreography by Ivan Catanese

At Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY (2002)

ABOUT THE PLAY

“I’ve noticed when I go to the theatre, unless it’s something very great, that within one or two minutes in the theatre, I get it. I noticed, also on television, when there are a number of movies on, that I can switch from one channel to another and be in the middle of three different movies and in 30 seconds I could be laughing or crying at what I see, that a great deal of the plot is being communicated in an already ongoing piece, very quickly. I wanted to get that part of drama, that part of theatre, on stage at least into these texts.”

— Kenneth Koch

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kenneth Koch (27 February 1925 – 6 July 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the New York School of poetry, a loose group of poets including Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery that eschewed contemporary introspective poetry in favor of an exuberant, cosmopolitan style that drew major inspiration from travel, painting, and music.

NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR

While the world seems to ripping apart in anger, however, I have been given a golden chance to enter the lyrical garden of Kenneth Koch. In it, I have found the blossom of promises and delight, the hues of humor, the sting of passion and the scent of regret. I have had the honor of traveling toward the Triumph of Love, in the company of generous and talented artists, who have lit my path. I have harvested hours of exquisite human contradictions, which have endeared me further yet to the fragility and the humbleness of our existence. Kenneth Koch died of leukemia during this production of One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays on July 6th, 2002

— Maria Pessino, East Hampton, 2002

MUSIC

Roger Tréfousse writes a wide variety of music: film scores, operas and musicals, symphonic works and chamber music. Films include the HBO thriller Ladykiller and the PBS documentary, Jackson Pollock: Portrait. Television credits include The Guiding Light and As the World Turns (CBS). 

SCRIM PROJECTIONS

Larry Rivers is an American painter, sculptor, printmaker, designer, actor and poet, and a leading figure in the revival of figurative art that a reaction against the dominance of Abstract Expressionism.  

LIGHTING DESIGN

Kameron Steele (Lighting Designer)

Previous design work with Oddfellows Playhouse for Your Wait in Gold (Long House). Since 1990, Kameron has worked as an actor, director and designer, most notably with Robert Wilson and Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki at the Lincoln Center Festival, Bam Next Wave and various other festivals in Europe, Asia and the Americas. At the Watermill Center in 2000 he started The South Wing Theatre Company with Ivana Catanese, and has since presented works in NYC at HERE, PS122, The Public, LMCC, the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center and Japan Society. Kameron is a graduate of Northwestern University. 

CO-CHOREOGRAPHER and ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR

Ivana Catanese (Director) 

Previously for Oddfellows Playhouse: Your Wait in Gold & Labyrinth (Long House) and RRR (Benson & Keys Gallery). After graduating from UNC, Mendoza, Argentina where she founded the alvarez-catanese-ponce company, whose adaptation of Sartre’s No Exit (A Puerta Cerrada) toured to the New Trends Festival in Buenos Aires and to the Casa de las Americas Festival in Havana, Cuba. From 2000-2007 she worked at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, where she co-founded The South Wing Theatre Company (TSW) and has since acted, produced, written and directed on the company’s works in Europe, the Americas and Japan. In April 2011 she will present her adaptation of Kobo Abe’s Secret Rendezvous at HERE Arts Center, NYC. www.thesouthwing.org

CAST

Janice Bishop, Rodrigo Cameron, Lydia Franco-Hodges, Diane Grotke, Tomas Majchersky, Skye Qi Marigold, Maria Pessino, Robert Salas, Ines Somellera, Evan Thomas