The Flea Theater
Encyclopedia
The Flea Theater, founded in 1996, is a theatre
in the TriBeCa
section of New York City
. It presents primarily new American theatre, and provides a venue for film stars to act on a very small (74-seat) stage. It is the home of "The Bat Theater Company", an Obie Award
winning resident acting troupe of primarily young actors that presents new and classical works. The theater was founded by distinguished downtown theater artists: director Jim Simpson, playwright Mac Wellman
, and designer Kyle Chepulis. Known primarily for original productions of post-9-11
play "The Guys
" and political works by A. R. Gurney
.
The Flea Theater, under Artistic Director Jim Simpson and Producing Director Carol Ostrow, is one of New York’s leading off-off-Broadway companies. Founded in 1996 , the award-winning Flea Theater was originally formed out of the purely artistic impulse to create “a joyful hell in a small space”.
Since its inception in 1996, The Flea has presented over 90 plays and numerous dance and live music performances. Highlights include Anne Nelson’s The Guys, A.R. Gurney’s Mrs. Farnsworth (New York Times Best Play List 2004), Will Eno’s Oh, The Humanity..., Elizabeth Swados’ JABU and Kaspar Hauser, the Obie award winning Benten Kozo, as well as premieres of playwrights Mac Wellman, Adam Rapp, Thomas Bradshaw, Itamar Moses, and performance artists Mabou Mines, Karen Finley and LAVA, among many others.
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
in the TriBeCa
TriBeCa
Tribeca is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York in the United States. Its name is an acronym based on the words "Triangle below Canal Street", and is properly bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and Vesey Street...
section of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. It presents primarily new American theatre, and provides a venue for film stars to act on a very small (74-seat) stage. It is the home of "The Bat Theater Company", an Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
winning resident acting troupe of primarily young actors that presents new and classical works. The theater was founded by distinguished downtown theater artists: director Jim Simpson, playwright Mac Wellman
Mac Wellman
Mac Wellman is an American playwright, author, and poet. Wellman is best known for his experimental work in the theater which rebels against theatrical conventions, often abandoning such traditional elements as plot and character altogether...
, and designer Kyle Chepulis. Known primarily for original productions of post-9-11
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
play "The Guys
The Guys
The Guys is a play by Anne Nelson about the aftereffects of the collapse of the World Trade Center. In the play, Joan, an editor, helps Nick, an FDNY captain, prepare the eulogies for an unprecedented number of firefighters who died under his command that day...
" and political works by A. R. Gurney
A. R. Gurney
A. R. Gurney is an American playwright and novelist. He is known for works including Love Letters, The Cocktail Hour, and The Dining Room. Gurney currently lives in both New York and Connecticut....
.
The Flea Theater, under Artistic Director Jim Simpson and Producing Director Carol Ostrow, is one of New York’s leading off-off-Broadway companies. Founded in 1996 , the award-winning Flea Theater was originally formed out of the purely artistic impulse to create “a joyful hell in a small space”.
Since its inception in 1996, The Flea has presented over 90 plays and numerous dance and live music performances. Highlights include Anne Nelson’s The Guys, A.R. Gurney’s Mrs. Farnsworth (New York Times Best Play List 2004), Will Eno’s Oh, The Humanity..., Elizabeth Swados’ JABU and Kaspar Hauser, the Obie award winning Benten Kozo, as well as premieres of playwrights Mac Wellman, Adam Rapp, Thomas Bradshaw, Itamar Moses, and performance artists Mabou Mines, Karen Finley and LAVA, among many others.
See also
- Speculations: An Essay on the TheaterSpeculations: An Essay on the TheaterSpeculations: An Essay on the Theater is a treatise by one of today's major experimental playwrights: Mac Wellman. It was published with the collection of plays entitled The Difficulty of Crossing a Field...
- Mac WellmanMac WellmanMac Wellman is an American playwright, author, and poet. Wellman is best known for his experimental work in the theater which rebels against theatrical conventions, often abandoning such traditional elements as plot and character altogether...
- Performance artPerformance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
- Performing GaragePerforming GarageThe Performing Garage is an off-Broadway theater in SoHo, New York City. Established in 1968, it is the permanent home of the experimental theater company originally named The Performance Group that morphed in 1980 into The Wooster Group , and their primary performance venue.Since 1978, it also...
- Elizabeth LeCompteElizabeth LeCompteElizabeth LeCompte is a founding member and the theater director of experimental theater collective The Wooster Group .-Biography:...
- The Wooster GroupThe Wooster GroupThe Wooster Group is a New York City-based experimental theater company known for creating numerous original dramatic works. It gradually emerged during 1975-1980 from Richard Schechner's The Performance Group and took its name in 1980...
- Ontological-Hysteric TheaterOntological-Hysteric TheaterThe Ontological-Hysteric Theater was founded in 1968 by Richard Foreman. According to his website, his aim was-Total Theater:According to his website,-Production history:...
- Richard ForemanRichard ForemanRichard Foreman is an American playwright and avant-garde theater pioneer. He is the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater.-Life :...
- Richard SchechnerRichard SchechnerRichard Schechner is Professor of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University , editor of TDR: The Drama Review, and artistic director of East Coast Artists. His BA is from Cornell University , MA from the University of Iowa , and PhD from Tulane University...
- HappeningHappeningA happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...
s - Allan KaprowAllan KaprowAllan Kaprow was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years...
- FluxusFluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
- IntermediaIntermediaIntermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. Thus, the areas such as those between drawing and poetry, or between painting...
- Dick HigginsDick HigginsDick Higgins was a composer, poet, printer, and early Fluxus artist. Higgins was born in Cambridge, England, but raised in the United States in various parts of New England, including Worcester, Massachusetts, Putney, Vermont, and Concord, New Hampshire.Like other Fluxus artists, Higgins studied...
- Marina AbramovićMarina AbramovicMarina Abramović is a Belgrade-born New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art.” Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and...
- Experimental theatreExperimental theatreExperimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
- Avant-gardeAvant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....