World Premiere of Muntergang and Other Cheerful Downfalls

Tuesday, June 16, 2015, 7 PM
YIVO Institute, 15 West 16th Street, NYC
Tickets: $15  Box Office: smarttix.com | 212-868-4444 

Great Small Works' brand-new production inspired by the lives and work of Yosl Cutler and Zuni Maud, whose Modicut Puppet Theater was the first Yiddish puppet theater in the U.S.  

The show will be introduced by Dr. Edward Portnoy, whose research in the YIVO Archives was the impetus for this project.

 

Memorial Day SPAGHETTI DINNER

GREAT SMALL WORKS presents a Memorial Day Spaghetti Dinner
Monday, May 25^th at Teatro SEA in lower Manhattan.

Join us with

PUPPETS, AND REJOICING IN SYSTEMIC CRITIQUE

GREAT SMALL WORKS presents new scenes in their developing work, Muntergang and Other Cheerful Downfalls, based on the life and work of Zuni Maud and Yosl Cutler and their 1930s Yiddish-language company, Modicut Puppet Theater.

Created and performed by John Bell, Trudi Cohen, Stephen Kaplin, Jenny Romaine and Roberto Rossi.

Written by Jenny Romaine

Music performed by Hannah Temple and Jessica Lurie

Guest performer Sam Wilson

Thanks to YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Dr. Edward Portnoy and the Jim Henson Foundation.

The Vagabond Puppeteers: Puppetry and Politics in 1939, a film by anthropologist and Rhode Island School of Design professor Winnie Lambrecht.

         The film shows political puppet theater performed one summer among dairy farmers in upstate New York by Pete Seeger, Jerry Oberwager, Mary Wallace and Harriet Holtzman, all in their early 20’s at the time.

Port Quincy’s Semi-Upright Puppet Co.

         New cantastoria for our time by Jason Hicks and friends.

Music by Rosza Daniel Lang/Levitsky (singing), Yonah Adelman (guitar & singing) and Maggie Schreiner (drums).

         We are a punk band that plays Yiddish anarchist and bundist songs (and some other Yiddish radical tunes) - the soundtrack to strikes, uprisings, assassinations, and revolutionary movements from Odessa and Vilna to New York and Galveston to Buenos Aires and Havana.  We sing these songs because they're bad-ass, because we believe in them and in the movements that made them possible, because we are part of those movements.

Monday, May 25, 7:30 PM

Teatro SEA, at El Clemente

107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY

Info:  718-840-2823

Tickets:  $15 (no one turned away for lack of funds)

Great Small Works gratefully acknowledges support for Spaghetti Dinners from: NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, NY State Council on the Arts, the Doctorow Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, and the Puppet Slam Network.  Thank you!

PURIMSHPIEL 2015! Three events in three days!

The Aftselokhes Spectacle Committee, Jews For Racial & Economic Justice & The Workmen's Circle present:

Your Roots Are Showing: An Underground Purim Botanical
Purim 2015! Three events, three days!

Join us for a long weekend of carnival and community celebration as we unveil the results of months of collaboration, organizing, rehearsing, and endlessly inventive spectacle engineering.

Thursday, March 5 - SHOW
Doors 8pm, Show 8:15
East Midwood Jewish Center
1625 Ocean Avenue between Avenue K & L, Brooklyn
Q to Avenue J

The dazzling premiere of our magnificent Purim show! A cozy performance of our folk pageant remixing the Book of Esther with the politics of the moment to bring you the visual and musical spectacular of the season! Featuring live music in many Jewish languages, giant puppets, intricate hand-made masquerade, an intergenerational cross-cultural cast, audience participation, homentashen, and more!

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Saturday, March 7 - PARTY AND PERFORMANCE
Doors 8pm, Show 8:30pm
East Midwood Jewish Center
1625 Ocean Ave between Avenue K & L, Brooklyn
Q to Avenue J

The party of the year! Join us for the luscious performance of our folk pageant, including bands, DJs, dancing, and revelry at our ecstatic all-night extravaganza.

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Sunday, March 8 - CARNIVAL FOR ALL AGES
1-4 PM
Union Temple
17 Eastern Parkway at Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn
2/3 to Brooklyn Museum, Q to 7th Ave, S to Botanic Gardens

A sumptuous, topsy turvy, social justice-themed Purim carnival featuring hand-made carnival games designed and built by kids and youth. Featuring an excerpt from the Aftselakhis Spectacle Committee's Purimshpiel! Fun for all ages! Wear a costume of your own, or dress up from our costume chest and strike a pose in our photo booth.

--

To learn more about Purim programming and how to get involved follow us on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/SpectacleCommittee

Each year (tfu tfu tfu) the Aftselakhis Spectacle Committee (TASC) produces a radical Purimshpil in cahoots with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ). The process of planning and realizing the Purimshpil is led by TASC in collaboration with JFREJ members, Youth Brigade leaders and staff, as well as a broad range of cultural workers, volunteers and social justice organizations and their members.

Co-sponsored by:
East Midwood Jewish Center
Great Small Works
Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives
Ma'yan
Union Temple

Spaghetti Dinner December 30th

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GREAT SMALL WORKS SPAGHETTI DINNERS

together with

GOH Productions and

THE ADRIENNE COOPER

DREAMING IN YIDDISH AWARD

present

Year-End Concert and Spaghetti Dinner                                    General Admission:  $25

Tuesday, December 30, 2014, 7:30PM                                         Tickets: tinyurl.com/acdiy-tix

Judson Memorial Church                                                                                          or 800-838-3006                 

55 Washington Square South, NYC

Advance ticket purchase will guarantee a seat.

Limited tickets available at the door.  No one turned away for lack of funds.

Witness the Adrienne Cooper Dreaming In Yiddish Award Ceremony honoring author, playwright and linguist Michael Wex.

Hear the rock stars of New Yiddish music.*

Experience the second work-in-progress showing of Great Small Works' new show:

                  Muntergang and Other Cheerful Downfalls.

See projections created by Tine Kindermann, Stephen Kaplin and Jenny Romaine.

Remember Forgetting Finding, stilt dance by Alicia Gerstein and Michaela Lind.

Musical slide lecture by Eric Drooker about how the changing urban landscape has shaped his

                  political vision.

Bring your appetites and dancing shoes!

 *Featured Singers                                                                                        

Sarah Gordon                                     

Eleanor Reissa                                   

Daniel Kahn                                    

Judith Berkson                                  

Psoy Korolenko                                    

Jackie Mendelson                                           

Fredda Mendelson                   

Peter Sokolow                                    

 

*Band Members 

Frank London

Michael Winograd

Pam Fleming

Matt Darriau

Jessie Lurie

Patrick Farrell

Kenneth Bentley

Aaron Alexander

Lauren Brody

Marilyn Lerner                 

Great Small Works thanks the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Jim Henson Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, the Scherman Foundation, Mental Insight Foundation, Doctorow Foundation, and the Puppet Slam Network for their generous support.

Work-in-Progress Performance of New Great Small Works Show

MUNTERGANG and OTHER CHEERFUL DOWNFALLS
A work-in-progress performance of Great Small Works' newest project!

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11th, 7:00PM
YIVO Institute
15 West 16th Street, NYC

Admission:  General $15/YIVO Members $12
https://tix.smarttix.com/Modules/Sales/SalesMainTabsPage.aspx?ControlState=1&DiscountCode=&SalesEventId=3170&DC=

Box Office:  (212) 868-4444  









An Artist and Scholar Collaboration
Deep in the YIVO archives are the original puppets used by Modicut, Yosl Cutler and Zuni Maud's Yiddish puppet theater troupe.  The first of its kind in the United States, Modicut was known for satirical with that spanned the breadth of Jewish life.  GREAT SMALL WORKS, together with DR. EDWARD PORTNOY, bring the pair to life--and to a new audience--by portraying the rich Yiddish cultural context from which Modicut sprung, and re-staging original Modicut scripts. 

The program will consist of scenes from Muntergang and Other Cheerful Downfalls, talks by Dr. Portnoy and Great Small Works company members John Bell and Jenny Romaine, a newly-unearthed song written by Yosl Cutler, and a Toy Theater adaptation of a Yiddish story for the edification of 1930's youth titled "Santa Klos Hot Gekhalisht" ("The Day Santa Klaus Fainted").

Day-Long Event to Celebrate Release of "Puppetry and Material Performance"

Puppetry and Material Performance
A Day-Long Book Celebration with Screenings, a Performance, and Discussions

Free + Open to the Public
Monday, December 1 | 10:00am - 5:00pm Screenings + 6:30pm Performance and Conversation

At the Segal Theatre, The Graduate Center CUNY

The Segal Center is pleased to celebrate the publication of The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance (Routledge, 2014), edited by Dassia N. Posner, Claudia Orenstein, and John Bell, with a full day of curated screenings followed by excerpted performances and a panel discussion featuring John Bell (Director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut) and Claudia Orenstein (Associate Professor at Hunter College and The Graduate Center, CUNY).

Join us for screenings highlighting the depth and breadth of contemporary puppetry in the US and abroad.

Screenings curated by Tim Cusack (Artistic Director, Theatre Askew) will be shown from 10:00am to 1:00pm and 2:00pm to 5:00pm
Check our website for updated screening schedules
Screenings will include:

Compagnie Philippe Genty, France (Excerpts)
Domestic Resurrection Circus 1985 | Bread and Puppet, Vermont
Hermann | Theater Im Wind, Germany (Enno and Anne Podehl)
Hunchback | Redmoon Theatre, Chicago
Karagöz performance, Turkey
Magic in Our Hands | Documentary on Indian Puppetry (Excerpts)
Petrushka and Vertep | The Vagrant Booth (Alexander Gref and Larissa Sokolova), Russia
Terror as Usual | Great Small Works, New York
Ubu and the Truth Commission | Handspring Puppet Company, South Africa
Un Avventura d¹Orlando Furioso | Manteo Sicilian Marionettes, New York
The Wonder of Diamond | Eko Nugroho (with Matthew Cohen), Indonesia

and others

AND--
6:30pm short performance of Living Newspaper: Sidewalk Ballet by John Bell and Trudi Cohen of Great Small Works, selected readings from the book, and a discussion moderated by Claudia Orenstein.

Spaghetti Dinner November 4th

Great Small Works SPAGHETTI DINNER
IT'S ALIVE!
Tuesday, November 4th, 7:30PM

Teatro SEA

107 Suffolk Street, NYC
Admission: $15 sliding scale (no one turned away)
Info: 718-840-2823

Distract your mind from election returns, with performers:

Warren Lehrer
A Life in Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley.
Warren Lehrer presents highlights from his award-winning "illuminated novel" containing 101 books within it.

Great Small Works
Living Newspaper, #2: Sidewalk Ballet
A new chapter in the Toy Theater series by John Bell and Trudi Cohen
See Moses!  See God!  See Jane Jacobs!
Let’s talk about public space as holy ground.

Deborah Kaufmann
Buried Alive! A Matchbook Theater
A frightfully funny exploration of our fear of being buried alive and of the curious phenomenon of 19th Century “waiting mortuaries.” Based on historical and medical facts and constructed entirely in and of matchboxes, full of dreadful discoveries, with a merry eccentric matron as your guide.

Shark Shark
Music for the ears and feet.
Kevin Connell (banjo), Theo Hilton (guitar), Sherelle Miller (cello), Maggie Schreiner (drums) and Hannah Temple (trombone)

And special added surprise:
Chinese Theatre Works
Handpuppet moment!


Great Small Works Spaghetti Dinners are supported, in part, by public funds from the NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the NYS Legislature.
                                                          

With thanks to the Puppet Slam Network for its support.