Set in Brooklyn 2017, PILLOWTALK brings to life one night in the lives of Sam and Buck, a recently married interracial couple. Through a formal exploration of theatrical naturalism and the codified gender norms of ballet's pas de deux, PILLOWTALK queers the intersections of race, gender, and class to challenge our assumptions of love and marriage. Confronting the backlash against marriage equality and #BlackLivesMatter, PILLOWTALK explores how liberation and oppression co-exist in our most intimate spaces, transforming social and cultural traditions into radical performances of change.
The Tank (Meghan Finn and Rosalind Grush, Artistic Directors) will present the World Premiere of PILLOWTALK by Kyoung’s Pacific Beat written and directed by Kyoung H. Park and presented as part of The Exponential Festival at The Tank (312 West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues), January 11-27. Performances will be Thursday, January 11 at 8pm, Friday, January 12 at 4:30pm & 8pm, Saturday, January 13 at 3pm & 8pm, Monday, January 15 at 8pm, Wednesday, January 17 at 8pm, Thursday, January 18 at 8pm, Friday, January 19 at 8pm, Saturday, January 20 at 3pm & 8pm, Wednesday, January 24 at 8pm, Thursday, January 25 at 8pm, Friday, January 26 at 8pm, and Saturday, January 27 at 3pm & 8pm. Tickets ($25) are available for advance purchase at www.thetanknyc.org. The performance will run approximately 75 minutes, with no intermission.
PILLOWTALK is performed by JP Moraga (Street Children with Vertigo Theater at The New Ohio, NYTimes Critic's Pick) and Basit Shittu (Next Faggot Nation at HERE), two queer men of color, in a play written and directed by Kyoung H. Park (Artistic Director of Kyoung's Pacific Beat) with choreography by Katy Pyle (Artistic Director of Ballez), live music by Helen Yee (Miss Julia at LaMaMa), sound design by Lawrence Schober (Primary with Sanguine Theatre Company; Asking for Trouble at EST), set and lighting design by Marie Yokoyama (Three Trees with Pan Asian Rep; We in Silence Hear a Whisper with Red Fern Theatre), costume design by Andrew Jordan (Christopher Williams' Il Giardino d’Amore at Danspace Project) , and dramaturgy by Jess Applebaum (One Year Lease).
About the Company: Kyoung's Pacific Beat
Kyoung’s Pacific Beat is a peacemaking theater company based in Brooklyn, New York, which promotes a culture of peace through the production of new works of theater written and directed by Kyoung H. Park. KPB develops its work over the course of multiple years, in collaboration with artists from different cultures and different disciplines. During this process, KPB researches and engages in local communities to explore personal and communal experiences of oppression and transforms these stories through radical experimentations with theatrical forms, bringing together like-minded individuals that believe peace matters. www.kyoungspacificbeaKyoung’s Pacific Beat is a peacemaking theater company based in Brooklyn, New York, which promotes a culture of peace through the production of new works of theater written and directed by Kyoung H. Park. KPB develops its work over the course of multiple years, in collaboration with artists from different cultures and different disciplines. During this process, KPB researches and engages in local communities to explore personal and communal experiences of oppression and transforms these stories through radical experimentations with theatrical forms, bringing together like-minded individuals that believe peace matters. www.kyoungspacificbeat.orgt.org
1973, West Virginia. Following a cave collapse, 5 coal miners struggle to survive the dwindling supply of oxygen, the lack of food and water, the unravelling sense of passing time, and, even more threatening, their own competing natures. Brutally weaving through family histories, complicated friendships, crooked politics, childhood visions, audacious hopes, eerie dreams, criminal addictions, and fervent spirituality in this run-of-the-mill Appalachian community, Butcher Holler Here We Come is a descent into the male psyche-in-crisis where secret desires, carnal urges, and hidden memories come boiling to the surface in a primitive territory of Earth that mirrors the subliminal mind.
Butcher Holler Here We Come is immersively staged with the audience surrounding the actors and the performance is lit entirely by the headlamps on the performers heads.
About the Company: Aztec Economy
AZTEC ECONOMY is a Brooklyn-based non-profit arts collective initiated in Spring 2008 to present new live performances for the public. Our work seeks to provide a fresh perspective on American culture and its relationship to ritual, mythology, madness, dreams, and deliverance. Aztec Economy‘s projects have been featured twice in NYC at the Obie Award Winning Ice Factory, the Ohio Theater in Soho, 3 Legged Dog in Lower Manhattan, The Tank in Tribeca, Dixon Place in the Lower East Side, P.S.122 in the East Village, Monkey Town & The Brick Theater & Big Sky Works & House of Yes & Silent Barn in Williamsburg, Brooklyn Fireproof, Bushwick Open Studios, the Bushwick Starr, Greenpoint’s Lutheran Church of the Messiah, at the New Orleans Fringe Festival, the Fridge Space in Washington D.C., Collaboraction in Chicago, on board the Historic Steamship Lilac off the Hudson River, The Spindletop Boomtown Grounds in Southwest Texas, EMP Collective in Baltimore, The New Ohio in the West Village, The Cincinnati Fringe Festival, WaterTower Theatre in Dallas, Silver Meteor Gallery in Tampa, Palm Beach Organics Warehouse in West Palm Beach and bars, rooftops, churches, and backyards all over Brooklyn. Our non-profit sponsor organization is Fractured Atlas. www.aztececonomy.com