“We’re saying to adults, if you truly love us, you will commit to reducing violence and ending war!”

Theater for the New City presents

LYSISTRATA'S CHILDREN

L-R: Sinead Larkin, Emily Margolis, Jacob Lowenherz, Maghnus Mareneck, Mercer Borris, Max Fishelson, Natasha Fishelson. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.

To share an outstanding show of last season with a larger audience, Theater for the New City will present a return engagement of "Lysistrata's Children," a Brechtian comedy written and directed by Philip Suraci, from November 6 to 23, 2008.

Inspired by Aristophanes, "Lysistrata's Children" is an original work conceived by Suraci and devised for and with the teenage cast. Like "The Me Nobody Knows" and Broadway's current "Spring Awakening," it is a play performed by young people for adults to see. It explores issues of war and peace, violence and non-violence through the power dynamics of child/parent relationships. In Aristophanes' original, Athenian wives denied their husbands sex in order to persuade them to make peace. In Suraci's ingenious adaptation, children withhold love from their parents until they sign an oath of "Victory over violence" and join the children's quest for peace. There is sly comedy in the children's manipulation of their parents' behavior and in the parents' responses to their children's demands.

The play was originally workshopped and produced in 2006 with students of Friends Seminary on Stuyvesant Square. It was presented by Theater for the New City last fall.

Monica Bell plays the title character, who mobilizes other children for peace efforts, in "Lysistrata's Children." Photo by Jonathan Slaff.

In program notes to last year's production, author/director Philip Suraci wrote, "I hoped to create a peaceful response to the human plagues war and violence using classical references voiced through young people. I asked actors to research the history of war in the U.S., to create collages based on the theme of war and peace, as well as compose prose poems inspired by the art and poetry of child war victims. In rehearsal, we brainstormed methods that children use to get their parents to do what they want, and later, strategies employed by parents to control their children. In small groups, the actors created short scenes based on these ideas. These embryonic 'scene-lets' became the basis for individual scenes in the piece itself, which I structured and wrote out more fully. Much of the dialogue concerning thoughts about war was culled from a discussion in rehearsal on the topic of 'Is war necessary and if so, when?'"

The visual style of the play is Brechtian and expressionistic. Larger-than-life puppets, in the style of Bread and Puppet Theater, are used throughout. The play is staged with teens and 'tweens in all the parts, donning half-masks when they play their parents.

This production is not recommended for audiences under twelve.

Philippe Noisy plays a young peace activist in "Lysistrata's Children. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.

PRESS COVERAGE TO-DATE
Last season, Milton E. Polsky, writing in "The Chronicles," a publication of the NY State Theatre Education Association, called the piece "deftly and imaginatively written," noting, "The audience members were deeply moved by the production they enjoyed and the truth they perceived emanating from the stage." The review ended with a call for the play to be published. Howard Kissel, reporting on last year's TNC production in the Daily News, wrote that for the parents, the experience went deeper than simply "seeing my kids in a show." For the young cast, it was affirming that "anybody can make a difference."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR/DIRECTOR
Author/director Philip Suraci lives with his wife, filmmaker Christina Biddle, in South Orange, NJ. He has studied and performed with Anne Bogart at the Experimental Theater Wing at NYU, acting in "At the Bottom" by Maxim Gorky and later in "History: An American Dream." He was a board member and actor with the badneighbors theatre company, performing in the North American premiere of Marston’s "Antonio and Mellida" and originating roles in "Pink Vinyl/Blue Guitar," "The Monk," "Sedewick Downing Harbor" by Christopher Renstrom and "Three Stories High" by Madeline Olnek. He worked at the International Theatre and the English Theater in Vienna, Austria starring as Allen Felix in "Play it Again, Sam" and in the continental premiere of A.R. Gurney’s "The Dining Room."

Suraci worked as radio disc jockey and created the biographical radio game show "Good Question" heard on WMCA radio in New York. He has produced radio drama on WBAI radio in New York.

While doing the weekly research for "Good Question," he became aware of the lack of interest in the subject of history by many of today’s students and came upon idea of using drama to teach history thus bringing immediacy to the subject matter. He then enrolled in the Educational Theatre program at NYU. There he studied the technique of process drama under Philip Taylor and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed with Chris Vine of the Creative Arts Team. He received his M.A from NYU in 2004. Through the C.A.T. Youth Theatre, he discovered the power and originality of the voices of youth and began to look for ways to bring those voices to the stage, the result of which is "Lysistrata’s Children."

CAST AND DESIGNERS
The cast of 20 young actors, three musicians and three puppeteers is in formation as of this writing.

Sets and lights are by Caroline Abella, who was SM and lighting designer of the national tour of "Three Mo Divas." She has been lighting designer of various productions at Symphony Space and Theater Row. She was scenic designer of "True West" at Irish Rep.

Puppets and masks are by Spica Wobbe (Shu-yun Cheng), an independent puppetry artist from Taiwan. She has worked with the Shiny Shoes Children's Theater in Taiwan since 1991. Now based in NYC, she is also a teaching artist for New Victory Theater. She has worked and studied with master puppeteers Damiet van Dalsum(Holland), Albrecht Roser (Germany), Peter Schumann and Ralph Lee (U.S.). She appeared last season at TNC's Voice4Vision Puppet Festival in a production by Chinese Theatre Works. She has also worked with Ping Chong and Great Small Works, among others.

Show's website: www.lysistrataschildren.com.

CINO THEATER

Thursday - Sunday, November 6 - 23

Thursday - Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 3pm

All Seats $15/Students, Seniors, Teachers and Children under 12 $5/TDF vouchers accepted