PRESS

September 14, 2007

Performance Space 122 Presents Start Up By GTA’s Road Theater USA

Ambitious Theater Troupe Sells German Culture to American Audiences on Cross-Country Tour. Really.

Audiences in Off-the-Radar Towns Get Once in Lifetime Chance to Experience Play by Roland Schimmelpfenning, Germany’s Foremost Contemporary Playwright.


OCTOBER 7-14

GTA’s Road Theater USA embarks on a hilarious theatrical adventure - or misadventure - as five actors (three German and two from the U.S.), two Austrian video artists and the GTA team go cross-country in a tricked out school bus, travelling from New York to Los Angeles in search of the "American Dream” and touring the world premiere of Start Up, a black comedy written specifically for GTA by Roland Schimmelpfennig, Germany’s most produced contemporary playwright. Start Up will run at Performance Space 122 from Sunday, October 7 through Sunday, October 14.

In Start Up, an assorted crew of merry pranksters come up with what they believe is their million-euro idea: to sell German culture to Americans - which is of course the exact same thing that GTA is doing as it travels across the country presenting this fast-paced farce.

A video team documents this ambitious road trip, then mines the video material collected up to that point live during each performance where it is projected on set. This always new and expanded dramatic “Road Journal” will interact with the production of the play Start Up as background and stage design. The audience is treated to a unique, riotous and ever-changing performance event, a combination of the filmed “reality” of the tour and the theatrical “fiction” of the Schimmelpfennig play.

The trip will take the troupe from New York through 24 cities in the U.S. over 7 weeks. They will travel 6,000 miles and perform in 24 locations - including sleepy villages like Edmonton, Kentucky, Las Vegas, the original sin city, melting pots like El Paso on the Texas/Mexico border and even an actual ghost town, Death Valley Junction - until they reach Los Angeles on the Pacific Ocean.

A special post-show discussion will be hosted by NY Salon on Saturday, October 13 following the 4.30 performance. NY Salon Rumbles: The American Dream explores themes raised in Start Up year and offers the audience an opportunity to discuss these ideas with directors, writers, actors and journalists. This is an opportunity for all those who refuse to accept the idea that the audience is somehow a ‘dumb receptor’. Speakers include: Ronald Marx - GTA, James Matthews - US business expert, The NY Salon; Moderator: Alan Miller, Director, The NY Salon.

GTA’s Road Theater USA Start Up will be performed from Sunday, October 7 through Sunday, October 14 (No performance on Monday, October 8) on the following schedule at P.S. 122 (150 First Avenue @ E. 9th Street): Sundays at 4:30; Tuesday - Friday at 8:30; Saturday at 4:30 and 8:30. Tickets from $20, $15 (students/seniors), $10 P.S. 122 (members) and may be purchased by calling Theatermania at 212.352.3101 or online at www.ps122.org. For additional information visit www.ps122.org or call 212-477-5288.

More about Performance Space 122
Performance Space 122 is New York's ultimate destination for cutting-edge theatre, dance, music, live art and cross-media. Founded in 1979, Performance Space 122 is dedicated to supporting and presenting artists whose work challenges the traditional boundaries of dance, theatre, music, and performance. Committed to exploring innovative form as well as material, P.S. 122 is steadfast in its search for pioneering artists from a diversity of cultures and points of view.
http://www.ps122.org/

More about GTA
GTA has created international theatrical exchange between Germany and the United States since 1996, creating festivals featuring international production teams within conceptual installations. From the reading series NEW GERMAN VOICES in New York and the RED EYE SERIES in Düsseldorf to the month long festival STADTTHEATER NEW YORK in 2006, their work has been presented at the Cherry Lane Theater, the Public Theater and the HERE Arts Center in New York as well as the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Haus der Berliner Festspiele in Berlin and numerous other theaters in Germany.
http://www.roadtheaterusa.org/
http://www.g-t-a.de/

More about NY Salon
NY Salon aims to raise the level of discussion of our culture - from politics and business to science and the arts. We seek to provide environments in which ideas can be robustly debated among critically-minded people from a variety of backgrounds. Whatever the forum - discussing a novel, arguing the merits of a museum exhibition, or organizing a public debate - our goal is the same: to ensure that the assumptions underlying the pressing issues of the day are thoroughly examined. For further information, go to www.nysalon.org.

 
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