STELLAR CHARADES AT LABYRINTH THEATER BENEFIT

The Seventh Annual Benefit for the LAByrinth Theater Company features a stellar collection of celebrities scheduled to appear and compete in CELEBRITY CHARADES! "(all subject to continuing availability)" ... including Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Ortiz, Cupid himself (Bobby Cannavale), and not just one, but TWO Julias: Julia Stiles (now appearing on Bway in Mamet's Oleanna) and Julia Roberts.


Julia Stiles
Now in Oleanna
Is scheduled to compete in Celebrity Charades
Photo by Eric Roffman
(Taken at the Tribeca Film Festival)
Here's the announcement:

Artistic Directors Stephen Adly Guirgis,
Mimi O'Donnell, Yul Vázquez
and the Board of Directors of
THE LABYRINTH THEATER COMPANY
invite you to the seventh annual benefit featuring

CELEBRITY CHARADES
JACKPOT!

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2009

VIP COCKTAILS
The 2009 Dave Hoghe Award
will be presented to
Time Warner Inc.

THE LIVE AUCTION
with John Patrick Shanley
Bid for our priceless packages,
including a chance to play Charades
with the stars and

CELEBRITY CHARADES!
with referee Eric Bogosian

PLAYERS WILL INCLUDE:
Ian Astbury
Bob Balaban
Bobby Cannavale
Erika Christensen
Tom Colicchio
Billy Crudup
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Padma Lakshmi
Jesse L. Martin
Christopher Meloni
John Ortiz
Julia Roberts
Sam Rockwell
Cynthia Rowley
Daphne Rubin-Vega
Julia Stiles
Justin Theroux
Yul Vázquez
David Zayas
(all subject to continuing availability)

Watch four celebrity teams bluff and bust
in a fearsome, hilarious no-limit charades tournament!

Be sure to check out the CHARADES WEBISODES
featuring our favorite celebrities as they try
their damnedest to find out the secret location
of this year's Celebrity Charades©.

More player announcements to come and
information at www.LABtheater.org

To Purchase Tables and Tickets
CALL (212) 513-1082
or
E-MAIL charades@LABtheater.org

THE HOUSE - $15,000
· Premium Table (seats 10) at
the VIP Cocktails and Celebrity Charades
· front page program credit,
press release and website acknowledgement*
· LAByrinth artist guest at table (optional)
**Very limited availability**
$14,000 is a tax-deductible
contribution to LAByrinth

THE PIT BOSS - $10,000
· Priority Table (seats 10)
at the VIP Cocktails and
Celebrity Charades
· program credit and website
acknowledgement*
· LAByrinth artist guest at table (optional)
$9,000 is a tax-deductible
contribution to LAByrinth

VIP - $1,100
· Priority table seating for 1
for VIP Cocktails and Celebrity Charades
$1,000 is a tax-deductible
contribution to LAByrinth

WINNERS' CIRCLE - $2,000
· Pedestal Table (seats 4) for
VIP Cocktails and Celebrity Charades
$1,800 is a tax-deductible
contribution to LAByrinth

CARD SHARK - $750
· Theater seating for 4 at
Celebrity Charades
$700 is a tax-deductible
contribution to LAByrinth

RAILBIRDS - $250
· Theater seating for 1 at
Celebrity Charades
$200 is a tax-deductible
contribution to LAByrinth

BANKROLL:
I cannot attend, but would like to
stake LAByrinth with a tax-deductible
contribution of $__________

*To appear in the program, names
must be received by Wednesday,
November 25

To Purchase Tables and Tickets
CALL (212) 513-1082
or
E-MAIL charades@LABtheater.org
or visit
https://secure.labtheater.org/charades.php

INSTANT THEATER

As part of LAByrinth Theater Company's exemplary Master Class Program, an incredibly diverse group of 16 ACTOR-DIRECTOR-WRITER-PRODUCERs (yes, quadri-hyphenates all) were challenged last Monday (11/9) to write, rehearse, produce and PUT ON LIVE FOR A LIVE AUDIENCE a REAL THEATRICAL EVENT! before next Monday (11/16 -- yep, that's 7 days).

The show will be Sunday evening (11/15) 8:00 PM
at 31-08 Northern Boulevard in Long Island CityFREE with refreshments & discussion with the artists to follow.

Watch this space for more news (Bookmark this address!)!!

LAByrinth Theater Company assembled for this Master Class a diverse team: Each member falls somewhere differently in the actor-director-writer-producer (artist, musician) spectrum, tho' all are challenged to contribute to any and all specialties, especially not their own.

Athletic ability ranges from near couch-potato to near super-athlete; experience and age range from younger and recently in college to older and taught in college; employers range from steak houses to gourmet restaurants to colleges to self-employed to unemployed; ethnicities and nationalities range all over the place; talent and enthusiasm range from very high to very high!

Here's the "official" announcement:

LAByrinth Theater Company Master Class November 2009 Presents:

Elegies, etc...
Scenes from a funeral parlor

Sunday Nov. 15th at 8pm
3108 Northern Blvd.
Long Island City
[closest subway: N or W to 39th Ave.]

Entrance is FREE, refreshments, a sumptuous Portuguese dinner and discussion with the artists will follow. Running time: approx. 45 minutes.

In a series of vignettes, the performance explores with introspection, wit and humor our reactions and relation to death and loss: why do we mourn and for whom? In ELEGIES, ETC… the parlor becomes the space where the heroes open their hearts in ways they never have before, proving that, indeed, funerals are for the living.

As part of a class project, the 16 young dynamic artists of the LAByrinth Theater Master class joined forces to create this performance from scratch in less than a week. This is your opportunity to watch passionate art in the making!

Written by: Ernio Hernandez, Geoff Schuppert and Jonathan Blitstein.

Directed and performed by the Ensemble: Anastasia Morsucci, Brandon Scott Hughes, Danielle DeVito, Aktina Stathaki, Eric Roffman, Giovanni Sanseviero, Greg Seel, Jack Barley, Katie Van Rensalier, Mia Mountain, Rachael Richman, Sara Kubida, Soraya Butler, Ernio Hernandez, Geoff Schuppert, Jonathan Blitstein

Produced by the Ensemble.

Poster Design by Katie Van Rensalier

Check the Facebook Group The LAByrinth Theater Master Class 2009 for more info.

FREE FOR ALL

Free For All is a truly great book.

It's extremely interesting and well written, with fascinating recollections of the foundation and development of The Public Theater (and the arts of producing, directing, and acting, as well as fundraising and theater construction) from Joe Papp and actors, directors, and lots of others that worked with him. The interviews were conducted long ago, but only recently was Kenneth Turan given the release to go ahead with publication.

Author Kenneth Turan
At the "Free For All" Book Party
Photo by Eric Roffman
It should be the reading of choice for anyone interested in theater...

And required reading for:

• Anyone interested in producing for the theater
• Entrepreneurs
• Anyone involved with a cultural non-profit
• Anyone involved in public policy
• Business schools
• Acting and theater schools
• Actors, directors and producers
• Literature and drama classes
• Historians of New York in the late 20th century
• Everyone else

(Seriously, it has important contributions to all these areas of study... and more. And I hope that the original tapes/transcripts, etc will be donated to a museum, library or university because they will also be invaluable to future scholars -- in all these disciplines above... and more!)

Papp and The Public Theater were pioneers in developing experimental and off-Broadway theater, developing an American tradition of playing Shakespeare, and developing non-traditional casting.

(My own opinion is that this would be a great time to develop a new, vigorous, new-theater movement. Of course, there's currently lots and lots of theater in New York -- a truly amazing amount of theater -- but I haven't seen it breakout into a new aesthetic. This book gives some clues as to how one emerges.)

The book is filled with interesting gems. Here's theater critic Clive Barnes on how Papp believed in keeping The Public alive:

Clive Barnes: "Joe has always understood the necessity of expansion -- not the desirability of expansion but the actual necessity... An arts organization is a living organism..."

The Public Theater was sufficiently well established by Joe Papp that it survived its founding Director. (Something that's not that easy to accomplish.) The current Artistic Director (Papp, of course, was Everything Director), Oskar Eustis, is leading The Public in a rich and expanding program of activities very much in the spirit of the institution that Papp established.

Oskar Eustis
Current Artistic Director of the Public Theater
At the "Free For All" Book PartyPhoto by Eric Roffman