Émilie du Châtelet was larger than life: lover of Voltaire, among others; esteemed physicist who first defined kinetic energy; respected mathematician and translator of Newton’s Principia Mathematica; author of a treatise on the happiness of women; inventor of the concept of financial derivatives in part to pay off $1 million she lost to card sharks in a night of gambling—all of this achieved before she died in childbirth at the age of 42. Revered Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, internationally extolled for her contemporary operas, together with librettist Amin Maalouf, focuses on her heroine’s ruminations on love, fame and science during the last days of her life. World-renowned soprano Elizabeth Futral makes her Festival debut in this highly anticipated American premiere of a work described as “an international event” by The Times of London. Directed by Marianne Weems. Conducted by Spoleto Festival USA Resident Conductor John Kennedy.

Emilie will be presented in New York as part of Lincoln Center Festival in June 2012

CONTINUOUS CITY is a meditation on how contemporary experiences of location and dislocation stretch us to the maximum as our “networked selves” occupy multiple locations. From Shanghai to Los Angeles, Toronto to Mexico City, CONTINUOUS CITY tells the story of a traveling father and his daughter at home tethered and transformed by speed, hypermodernity, and failing cell phones. The characters they interact with pursue their own transnational business, from an internet mogul exploiting networking across the developing world to a nanny who blogs humorous stories about the people and places within her universe. (Read her blog here.)

The show also reaches directly into each city the production visits through a participatory website and on-site filming to create a global and local production. CONTINUOUS CITY is about people far from home, CONTINUOUS CITY is where we live now.

We developed the frame for these components during key residencies at the Krannert Center and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, at the University of California, Berkeley and at The Kitchen in New York.

“The Bank — or the Company — needs — wants — insists — must have — as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling…

But the monster is sick. Something’s happened to the
monster.”

Using John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath as a narrative backbone, ROAD TRIP tells contemporary tales of foreclosure, following economic refugees and migrants from two different American eras. Steinbeck’s Joad family moves along the great Dust Bowl migration, while a contemporary house rooted to its site — yet connected to a web of global finance and investment – becomes a container for stories from the current, evolving crisis. ROAD TRIP explores the changing meaning of home, homelessness, and place both in the present moment and in the broader context of the American mythos.

On stage, ROAD TRIP is built around an archetypal house that is sometimes inhabited, sometimes abandoned, sometimes transformed or broken, and sometimes only imagined or remembered by those who have moved on or lost their homes. In ROAD TRIP this house is more than an image or representation; it is an artifact of the current upheaval — the real thing: a foreclosed house from Columbus, Ohio dismantled and carried in pieces to the stage to tell its story. The house is a tragic character, inhabited and manipulated by the people and institutions that have surrounded it — from an owner and renter to a local realtor all the way to the trading desk at Goldman Sachs and the Swiss headquarters of reinsurance giant AIG.

Outside the house, on the road, the Joads carry on their eternal journey. Steinbeck’s beautiful prose, both stark and lyrical, is used in voiceover as a descriptive soundtrack as we step in and out of their story, illustrating their trials and struggles as they make their way slowly west. They build their world onstage, dreaming of ‘home’, while the production ghosts forward to our complex and contemporary digital environment.

As with all of the work of The Builders Association, ROAD TRIP draws from ‘real life’ events as source material; the myriad, bizarre, humorous and lamentable stories of the current crisis. ROAD TRIP traces a line from kerosene lamps and makeshift roadside tents to the digital glow of screens under overpasses and in parked cars at Wal-Mart parking lots. ROAD TRIP finds us at our current crossroads: with a radically altering sense of home and stability, community and ownership and a retooling of the American Dream.

Under the direction of founding artistic director Marianne Weems, long-time Builders Association collaborators Jennifer Tipton (lighting), John Cleater (scenic) Dan Dobson (sonic) reunite their design forces in the Builders’ signature style of epic, technological beauty. James Gibbs and Moe Angelos create and adapt the text and Austin Switser (video) washes it all in an elegant palette of 21st century movement.

HERE Arts Center
New York City, NY
October 2010
Created by Peter Flaherty & Jennie Liu
Scenic Design by Peter Ksander : Sound Design by Brandon Wolcott : Lighting by Jeanette Yuk-Sew : Everything else by Josh Higgason

The Builders Association

Directed by Marianne Weems
Design, story and video concept by Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Performers:
Maureen Angelos
Jess Barbagallo
Nick Bonnar
David Pence
Kristen Sieh
Joseph Silovsky

Video Design, Christopher Kondek & Austin Switser
Sound Design, Dan Dobson
Lighting Design, Jennifer Tipton
Writer/Dramaturg, Jessica Chalmers
Company Dramaturg, James Gibbs
3D Design and Animation by dbox
Costume Design, Ellen McCartney
Video Associate, Jared Mezzocchi
Lighting Associates, Tyler Micoleau, Laura Mroczkowski
Production Manager, Neal Wilkinson
Technical Director, Josh Higgason
Costume Coordinator, Andreea Mincic
Production Stage Manager, Megan Schwarz Dickert
Managing Director, Erica Laird

Based on an original idea by Diller Scofidio + Renfro

THEATRE MOVEMENT BAZAAR
24th Street Theater
Los Angeles, California
June 18th – July 14th, 2007

Written & Directed by Richard Alger & Tina Kronis : Scenic Design by Jeff Webster : Lighting Design by Chis Kuhl

ZENPH STUDIOS

The Apollo Theater
Harlem, New York
June 18th – 22nd, 2008

Directed by Tre Garrett

Lighting Design by Joel Silver

Sound Design by Eric Hirsch

LUCIDITY SUITCASE
New York Theater Workshop
New York, New York
October 5th – 29th, 2006
Written & Directed by Thaddeus Phillips

Lighting Design by Jeff Sugg:

Sound Design by Jamie McElhienny

CENTER FOR NEW PERFORMANCE
R.E.D.C.A.T.
Los Angeles, California
May 8th – May 14th, 2007
Composed by David Rosenboom
Directed by Travis Preston

Scenic Design by Chris Barreca

Lighting Design by Laura Mroczkowski