Year-End Spaghetti Dinner

GREAT SMALL WORKS 

YEAR-END SPAGHETTI DINNER

Join us as we celebrate the arrival of the New Year!

We will eat, sing and dance together.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2019, 7:30 PM
JUDSON MEMORIAL CHURCH
55 WASHINGTON SQUARE SOUTH, NYC

Tickets: $20 sliding scale – no one turned away for lack of funds
Info: 917-319-8104
No advance sales – all ticketing at the door.

Featuring:

The Crowtations
The Brewery Troupe's legendary singing puppets. born in 1975 in New York City

"Sloughing"
A solo clown act
Performed by Eli Nixon and directed by Rebecca Martinez with live soundtrack by Deepali Gupta

Aeilushi Mistry
will tech the Divada (Lamp) Dance from Gujarat, India

“Saah!” ("Scream")
Work in progress shadow and rod puppet show based on a graphic novel about a fictional war-torn Syrian city in the process of destroying itself.
Harrison Greene, Director; Neda Kazemifar, Designer; Stephen Kaplin, Designer; and Syd Fini, Writer and Designer.

And -- kick up your heels!
SHARABI, the world’s only bhangra-funk-klezmer party band! led by trumpeter Frank London and percussionist Deep Singh

Hosted by Great Small Works
with help from the Boxcutter Collective

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Funding made possible in part by:
Puppet Slam Network, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Doctorow Family Foundation, Scherman Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts. THANK YOU!

Great Small Works and Building Stories, LLC looking for tenants

The extraordinary collective called Building Stories, LLC, is looking for a few new tenants. Great Small Works has been the anchor of this entity since its creation in early 2017. Its members are all artist-activists, and the shared workshop-rehearsal space hosts frequent art builds for social justice movements.

We have two enclosed office/studio rooms, approximately 100 sq. ft. each, which cost $500/month each. Tenants will also have access to a fully-equipped workshop with tools and materials, and to the shared open rehearsal area.

Are you interested? Inspired?
We'd love to talk with you!
contact trudico@gmail.com

Here are some images and information about us:

We Love Trees

Trudi Cohen and John Bell teamed up with Boston-based musicians Marji Gere and Dan Sedgwick to create a new Toy Theater show called "We Love Trees."

It was premiered at Marji and Dan's "Around Hear" concert series, at Mystic Housing Center in Somerville, MA, together with an ambitious program of tree-themed music and poetry.

We are eager to offer the show to green space advocacy groups in the Boston area and beyond.

Performances at Pontine Theater

Great Small Works enjoyed our weekend at Pontine Theatre in Portsmouth, NH!

We performed a program consisting of:

     "Oda a las Cosas," a cranky from the poem by Pablo Neruda

     "Lyzer the Miser," a table-top all-ages story by Isaac Bashevis Singer

     "Toy Theater of Terror As Usual, Episode 14: The Swamp," our newest episode in the long-standing series, in which we muck around in the slime and stench which is the swamp.

     "Three Graces," a large banner show (or cantastoria) honoring Grace Paley, Grace Kelly, Grace Jones and Grace Lee Boggs.

Pontine recently relocated to a restored 1845 one-room schoolhouse. Marguerite Mathews and Greg Gathers have been generous stewards of this company for 40 years. Thank you, Pontine Theatre!

Great Small Works Spaghetti Dinner

Great Small Works’ Spring Spaghetti Dinner
SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 7:00PM
HENSON ANNEX
225 East 67th Street, New York City

Admission: $15 -- no one turned away for lack of funds
Info: 917-319-8104
No advance ticket sales

Featuring:
Great Small Works' brand-new “Toy Theater of Terror As Usual, Episode 14: The Swamp.” Torn from today's news!

Ali Dineen and Feral Foster
Folk, gospel, country and original songs from these born-and-raised New York City musicians
and a cranky -- "I Know Moonlight I Know Starlight"

Paper Heart Puppets
Brad Shur with David Manley and Cabot Parsons
Voiceovers - Molly Parker Myers and Noa Graham
excerpt from new work-in-progress, "error code 451"
In a distant future, the earth is populated by only robots and aliens who live in an uneasy peace...

Teatro Lambe Lambe by Harrison Greene aka Stinky Monkey
A peep show for one viewer at a time!

Thanks for support from Puppet Slam Network and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

PURIM SPECTACLE IS COMING!

Join us for this year’s Purim shpil, produced by the Aftselakhis Spectacle Committee in cahoots with Jews for Racial & Economic Justice and Great Small Works:

 

Matryoshka Purim: Loops, Lots, & Consequence

Thursday, March 28th: JFREJ Purim shpil Preview Show 5779
Matryoshka Purim: Loops, Lots, & Consequence
7:30-10 PM at East Midwood Jewish Center, Brooklyn
A more intimate, expedited version of the show. Lots of seating available. Music from the legendary Purim house band. Be among the first in the known universe to ever see this shpil!

Saturday, March 30th: JFREJ Purim shpil 5779
Matryoshka Purim: Loops, Lots, & Consequence
8:00 PM - 3AM at East Midwood Jewish Center, Brooklyn
A ritually confusing masquerade ball, with the Purimshpil at the center of it joined by our legendary Purim House Band. Our endlessly fun and confusing party bring you a shpil in 3 acts and dazzles throughout the night with live bands and DJ sets. Come dressed up to build political imagination and solidarity with you, your best enemies and friends.

For kids, don’t forget to join our other two Kids Defend NYC Purim events:

Sunday March 24th: Purim Art Party & #NeighborsBeyondAmazon Parade
2:30-5:30 PM at Jewish Center of Jackson Heights, Queens

Sunday, March 31st Kids Defend NYC: A Purim Carnival
2-5 PM at East Midwood Jewish Center, Brooklyn

To volunteer for the Purimshpil, please fill out this form.
To volunteer for either of the Kids Defend NYC Purim events, please email Jen Abrams.
For access questions please check out Facebook page and website or contact Anna Jacobs Tafjacobs@gmail.com for specific questions.

Our Purim creative process is uniquely community-based and community-driven. We have reason to believe that it’s the largest and most participatory multi leftist medium Purim shpil anywhere in the world, and one of the largest in New York City overall. For all of our meetings, builds, rehearsals, and performances, we provide food, childcare, wheelchair-accessible spaces, and Metrocards for travel to those who are part of the events' creation. 

The Aftselakhis (Yiddish: In Spite Of) Spectacle Committee —  originally gathered under the tutelage of visionary Yiddish scholar and beloved Diva Adrienne Cooper (z'l) — works with hundreds of activists, artists, educators, queers, kids, and community volunteers to make an original work of art grounded in the traditional pan-Jewish practice of dressing up and staging transgressive folk plays in the cold day and long nights of winter.

Please join us! 

And, if you can -- Help us continue to broaden the range of this cultural experience, grounded in Jewish culture and centering artists of color.

Great Small Works at YIVO Children's Day

John Bell, Trudi Cohen and Joseph Therrien will perform "Lyzer the Miser," a tabletop puppet show based on the story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Check out how clever Todie tricks the greedy Lyzer into learning a lesson about generosity! We will perform at 11:00, 11: 45 and 12:30. 

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Time:

11:00 AM - 1:00 PM

Location:

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

15 West 16th Street

New York, NY 10011

Admission: Free GET TICKETS

Join us for the YIVO Institute’s annual Children’s Day, where visitors of all ages will enjoy a wonderful selection of Purim-themed activities and performances. This program will have something for everybody: sing-alongs of Yiddish folk staples (led by one of YIVO's own sound-archivists, Eléonore Biezunski), a magic show led by Shane Baker, a puppet show based on a play by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Lyzer the Miser, by Great Small Works, and more surprises to be announced soon! The Gefilteria will be offering delicious Purim-themed treats. Enjoy a festive morning celebrating our wonderful and diverse cultural heritage here on West 16th Street. 

PURIM WORK BEGINS

Purim Launch Farbrengen  

Sunday Jan 27 noon (food schmooze) 1-6 program

This is the beginning of the community knowledge-sharing and design process.

Our Purimspiel is March 30th, and the Farbrengen is the start of an intense community process of carnival creation. We will learn together from honored guest scholars, organizers and artists. There will be food and music.

Come and hear the brilliance of 

Michael Manswell and Sandra Bell artistic directors of Something Positive Dance Theater, and some next generation colleagues from Pagwah Mas, a leading cultural force in Brooklyn’s Carnival J'ourvert, will reflect on the work of Claudia Jones (1915-1964) a pioneering Afro Caribbean radical intellectual, the politics of carnival, and the current context of Brooklyn’s Jouvert.

Sneak Preview Torah study session by the People’s Beis Midrash/ Jewish Currents on the theme of “Antisemitism & Capitalism. ” “The People’s Beis Midrash format is inspired by the Jewish studyhouse culture of intensive partnered study of complex texts supported by expert teachers. Our teachers will be teachers and scholars from across many fields of Jewish and leftist expertise.”

Arielle Korman shares songs and and liturgy she’s written for Jewish Women of Color Marching as well as cultural work she’s doing with Ugnayan on Hate Free Zones and No Amazon NYC.

We will begin to gather at 12. The program begins at 1pm.

NOTE LOCATION CHANGE!!!!!!!
The Maple Street School
21 Lincoln Rd.
Brooklyn, NY 11225
Q train to Prospect Park
Exit at the Lincoln Road side and the school will be on your right.

Accessibility notes:
Prospect Park station has an elevator. The space is ramped. The Farbrengen space is nut-free.

Childcare: plan is still forming, if there is a chance you will bring a young one with you please email purimspectaclenyc@gmail.com.
If ASL or another language interpretation would help you to access this event, please email purimspectaclenyc@gmail.com
If you have other specific access needs that would help you to be able to attend, please email us at purimspectaclenyc@gmail.com. We can't guarantee we can meet them but will make every effort and let you know what's possible