Fiasco Theater’s 2022-2023 Season!
Winter/Spring 2023
Red Bull Theater in association with Fiasco Theater present
The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont
April 18-May 14, 2023 | Lucille Lortel Theatre
One of the first parodies of the English theater, this Elizabethan comedy is a joyful romp that celebrates our collective capacity to improvise and natural desire to be center stage. A play about the elopement of star-crossed lovers called The London Merchant is about to be performed when an unexpected interruption occurs. The actors adapt and invent a new story – an outrageous quest called The Knight of the Burning Pestle – which takes over the stage in hilariously disruptive ways. Everyone shares in the triumph of love, adventure, and the anything-can-happen nature of live theater.
PREVIOUSLY SEEN THIS SEASON
Fall 2022
Video & editing by PRIMME Creative
Pericles by William Shakespeare
October 19-29, 2022 | Houghton Hall
We were glad to offer captioning at all performances of Pericles.
In October, Fiasco Theater went back to its Shakespeare roots with a Without A Net production of Pericles. After a whirlwind rehearsal process, we shared 10 performances of this epic, sweeping story about resilience in times of struggle, hope on the horizon, and the enduring possibility of miracles. Filled with Fiasco's celebrated theatrical creativity and textual clarity, this rarely seen play featured plenty of music, ensemble joy, and rough magic.
Make it stand out
Next Chapter Podcasts in Collaboration with Fiasco Theater Present: MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Episodes released weekly from 10/28-12/9!
Listen on Spotify!
Listen on Apple Podcasts!
Translator / Concept: Aditi Brennan Kapil
Directed by Jessie Austrian
New York’s award-winning Fiasco Theater ensemble brings their deft text work and irreverent playfulness to the podcast medium in Measure For Measure, translated by Aditi Brennan Kapil and directed by Jessie Austrian. What happens to the body politic when a permissive government is replaced by a punitive one? What makes a just society? Does one follow the leader? The church? The letter of the law? Or can these forces harmonize together? The Vienna of Play On Podcasts’ Measure for Measure is a city where anything can happen to anyone, anywhere, any time.
Learn more and meet the cast!
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
in collaboration with Deaf West Theatre
November 2022 | Not open to the public
After several years of conversation, we are thrilled to be holding a workshop of Hamlet in collaboration with Deaf West Theater. Both companies are excited by this opportunity and the enormous potential of our discovery work together. We hope that this (closed) workshop will be one step in eventually bringing our Hamlet to you in a season to come.
Formerly: Fiasco’s 2021-2022 Season
SEPTEMBER 2021
THE LUCKY CHANCE by Aphra Behn
September 23 at 7:00pm
@ Theatre Row
OPEN YOUR EARS is our new reading series—this is where we get to share texts we are investigating with an audience, giving everyone a chance to hear the play together. We can both try out new ideas here, as well as take projects forward that have bubbled up from GROUNDWORK, our internal workshop series, and see how they land. Ensemble member Emily Young will direct a inventive exploration of Aphra Behn’s hilarious proto-feminist restoration comedy from 1688.
OCTOBER 2021
THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE by Bertolt Brecht
October 7 at 7:00pm
@ Theatre Row
SOME OF ITS PARTS is a new initiative designed to let the audience in on Fiasco’s conceptual development process. SOIP is meant to share parts of the show, exploring music, movement, casting, cutting, and design ideas—a laboratory of leaps and experiments for how a production might evolve. Ensemble member Paul Coffey will lead this investigation of Brecht’s sweeping morality parable about a community looking for clarity after conflict, and the transformative power of radical love and empathy.
NOVEMBER 2021
IMOGEN SAYS NOTHING by Aditi Brennan Kapil
November 18, 19, & 20, at 7:00pm and streaming through November 21
@ The Connelly Theater
Run time is approximately 2 hours 30 minutes, including a 15 minute intermission.
After a successful Zoom reading and discussion of selections from IMOGEN last June, we’ve decided to take the leap and make this play our first foray into WITHOUT A NET, our new program in which a play is table-worked, thrown on its feet, and shared with an audience in a free-wheeling, joyful performance in only two weeks. Under the direction of Jessie Austrian, this piece about a theater company in transition, a bear who loves the stage, and the power of who gets written into (and out of) history is the ideal piece to launch this new initiative.
DIAMOND ALICE
Book by Ben Steinfeld
Music & Lyrics by Alexander Gemignani
Saturday, March 12, 2022 at 2 pm
Tickets to be available soon.
After a GROUNDWORK week last year, the creative team of this new musical, led by director Amanda Dehnert, will use this time find the right point of departure for this wild story inspired by the exploits of the historical 40 Elephants Gang in post-WWI London.
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE by Tennessee Williams
Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 2 pm
Another sensational result from GROUNDWORK (during which we were able to collaborate with people all over the country and the world) was working with our former teacher, Stephen Buescher, on a radical reimagining of this American classic. Using an unexpected collage of improvisation, music, and choreographic movement, Stephen will lead the Fiasco ensemble through an intellectually explosive and entirely unique excavation of this visceral and powerful piece.