Harvestworks and La MaMa e.t.c. Present A Special Event:

PREMIERE WORKSHOP PRODUCTION OF AUDACIOUS NEW MULTI-MEDIA MUSIC THEATER
WORK!

THE BIRTH OF GEORGE
October 23, 24, 25 at 7 PM
La MaMa Box Office @ 74 East 4 Street [New York City]
Tel (212) 475-7710
Tickets $ 10

La MaMa E.T.C. has joined with American Opera Projects and Harvestworks
Artist-In-Residence Program to produce a Premiere Workshop Production of
The Birth Of George, by composers/librettists Lisa Karrer and David
Simons; with funding from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the
Jerome Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, and Meet The Composer. La
MaMa E.T.C. has granted a five-week workshop residence at La MaMa La
Galleria to develop the project.

The Birth Of George is directed by Bob McGrath of Ridge Theater (Every
Day Newt Berman, Manson Family); conducted by Greg Pliska (Metropolitan
Opera); with Choreographer Colin Connor (Jose Limon, Jacobs Pillow, The
Yard); Set Designer Derek Bernstein (American Dance Festival, The
Whitney Museum); Virtual Computer Designer Harold Watson of Benchmark
Studios and Inflatable Sculptor Jeff Gompertz of Floating Point Unit.

The artists are formulating a state-of-the-art computer technology that
will create a three-dimensional interactive set design. This approach
minimalizes the need for physical set pieces and opens the possibilities
for limitless dream-scapes. Jeff Gompertz will construct a clear plastic
inflatable suit for the character of Bubble Boy. Wireless velocity
sensitive MIDI-triggers on stilts will be used for the character of
Buffy La Touche, producing a dazzling range of sampled sounds.

The Birth Of George starts with a huge car accident, with many
casualties. We see a person (George) on a stretcher being urgently
attended to by doctors and nurses. He slips into a coma; the sights and
sounds of the emergency room distort into his fantasy. One by one the
other accident victims 'awaken' to inhabit this strange dream, shedding
their waking identities. The opera quickly becomes a communal dream of
comatose "Dream Bodies"; the story of a peculiar vaudevillian family
re-living a complex pseudo-history of entangled relationships.
Ultimately they each begin to surface, catching glimpses of the 'real'
world. To preserve their fantasy George invents a "Dream Gun" which he
uses to plunge them back into the shared dream. Finally, each character
is faced with the decision: stay in this fantasy or escape to reality?

The work is scored for conventional and microtonal homemade instruments
(including pedal steel guitar, microtonal 96 tone harp, test tube pan
pipes, Indonesian gamelan, bamboo buzzing sticks, jaw harps);
electronics (Theremin, digital sampler); using unusual combinations of
sounds and mixed musical genres. Vocal techniques will be far-ranging;
operatic, Tuva 'shredding', sprechstimme, character, musical comedy and
other unique 'extended' styles. The performing ensemble consists of nine
instrumentalists and nine vocalists/ actors.