EXCLUSIVE LOOK

                         Behind the scenes

                                     of

               AN EARLY HISTORY OF FIRE

                                   with

                              David Rabe

Dear Friends,

I've set plays at various points in recent history, Vietnam , Hollywood in the '80s, but for a long while I've wanted to go back to the time in the Midwest where I was a young man. This was the moment when the 50's began to break apart under pressure from the passions the preceding decades held in place. People were about to step into what became known as the Sixties without knowing what that time would be. My friendships then had begun in childhood, were primary into my twenties, and all male. With the introduction of sexual desire the need to reach out was a jolt, a welcome though puzzling, irresistible jolt. And of course we didn't know all that much about any of it. But we did know that a moment of freedom could bring pregnancy and divert our lives into dead ends. The sexes were kept apart as long as possible. Yearning and ignorance peered through desire distorted by an exotic, exaggerated romanticism or narrowed by wary resentment.

Meanwhile, the adults, who had lived through their own disillusionment and discovery, pretended they didn't know what they knew. Some because they didn't dare admit it, others because the coming change seemed too late for them.

I centered the play around the friendship of three young men, the father of one, a girl they thought they knew well and another girl unlike any they'd ever met, with one of the young men feeling the need to pull away, not to merely grow older, but to change. At some point I saw the possibility that I might be able to throw light not only on that period, but backward and forward in time, reaching faintly even into the present. Having grown older, I could recall the way we seemed to not merely discover the world but bring it into existence. I knew my parents had felt similarly, and I'd witnessed this discovery in my children as they reached their twenties. I hoped to evoke the way the fire of time both ignites and incinerates our lives. Generations arrive with hunger to do, to take, to live, and then they are shoved aside sooner or later by what follows.

The New Group, home to Scott Elliott's excellent revival of my play, Hurlyburly, is an ideal environment for An Early History of Fire. Reteaming with Scott, this time as producer, working with Jo Bonney, a director I strongly admire, I feel the play is in the hands of people who will bring out the best in every facet of production. With Jo and Scott on hand, I'm very glad to be back at The New Group, back in the theater.

David

Spring 2012
World Premiere
AN EARLY HISTORY OF FIRE
By David Rabe
Directed by Jo Bonney

From one of the most influential playwrights of our time, a world premiere set at the tipping point of the early 1960s. In a Midwestern town, Danny's world is defined by friendship and loyalty. But the bigger world is encroaching in the form of Karen, back from college in the east, alluring and unsettling because of what she now knows. Still, Danny can't escape the grip of his immigrant father, who is mourning a vanished world of lost prestige and clinging to his only son. Awhirl in longing and confusion, An Early History of Fire marks David Rabe's return to The New Group, following our acclaimed revival of Hurlyburly.


 Fall 2011
World Premiere
BURNING
By Thomas Bradshaw
Directed by Scott Elliott


Winter 2012
World Premiere
RUSSIAN TRANSPORT
By Erika Sheffer
Directed by Scott Elliott

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EXCLUSIVE LOOK

                          Behind the scenes 

                                      of

              BURNING with Thomas Bradshaw



Dear Friends,

For years, I have thought that The New Group is the most exciting and daring theater in New York . Their revival of Hurlyburly in 2005 made me realize that raw, uncompromising material can be produced at a major theater, and be produced well. Shows like that and Avenue Q inspired me to be steadfast in examining subjects that aren't being explored elsewhere in the theater.

Too many plays fail to inspire any response in audiences. Many plays simply regurgitate whatever it is that a particular audience wants to hear, and so fail to move any societal debate beyond where it already is. If I have a goal with my writing, it’s to challenge social norms, and to provoke audiences to question their deep-seeded beliefs about the world.

Theater is not and should not be viewed as a simple, self-congratulatory form of entertainment. It can slap us awake with its audacity and rivet us with its electricity. A play can explode in our minds so that all else is wiped clean, and what is left is the experience. The debates on the sidewalk outside are not about coffee or tea; questions are raised, taboo discussions are being had. This happens because people are presented with art that shakes their foundations.

If theater is to be a forum wherein social and political forces collide, then risk-taking needs to be supported – and The New Group is the perfect place for this. The New Group has been providing support for the most unique and innovative artists for years, and I already can feel the reason: they have offered such rich guidance in helping me to bring Burning to completion. I look forward to continuing my collaboration with them.

Thomas


Fall 2011
World Premiere
BURNING
By Thomas Bradshaw
Directed by Scott Elliott
Burning is the Off-Broadway debut of downtown phenomenon and Guggenheim Award-winner Thomas Bradshaw. In intersecting stories spanning two eras, a contemporary Black painter who hides his race goes to Germany for a show, only to find that the gallery owner has misinterpreted his work. And in the '80s a homeless teenager comes to New York to become an actor and is taken in by two gay men, who are themselves producing a new play. Titillating, taboo-testing and psychosexually insightful, this epic tale of ambition and self-invention bursts open the conceits of the worlds of art and theatre.


Winter 2012
World Premiere
RUSSIAN TRANSPORT
By Erika Sheffer
Directed by Scott Elliott


Spring 2012
World Premiere
AN EARLY HISTORY OF FIRE
By David Rabe
Directed by Jo Bonney





To Subscribe, Call
The New Group Subscription Telecharge Hotline
212.560.2183

EXCLUSIVE LOOK

                          Behind the scenes

                                        of

     RUSSIAN TRANSPORT with Erika Sheffer

 Dear Friends,

My parents and brother emigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union in 1975. I was born five years later and shortly after that, we settled in Sheepshead Bay , Brooklyn , which is where I spent most of my life. In the mid-eighties, the neighborhood was mostly Irish and Italian catholic. It wasn’t until the fall of communism in 1990, that that we were suddenly joined by thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet republics, including much of my father’s family.

Though my parents weren't theatre goers, I was lucky enough to grow up in Brooklyn (even if it was in the remote wilds), so I began going to shows as early as junior high school . Eventually, I earned my degree in acting from Syracuse University , and worked professionally for a several years, mostly doing classical theatre. I started writing plays four years ago and Russian Transport marks my debut. While I began working on it as a way to explore the struggles my family faced in coming to a new country, I was also fascinated by what living in under a brutal dictatorship does to one’s sense of morality. I think that compassion binds us, and that we have a responsibility to be kind to one another and particularly to those of us in great need. I’ve met many people, am related to many people, who don’t feel that way at all. Now let me clarify, I’m related to concentration camp survivors, people who lived through Stalin, spent time in Siberian prisons. These are people who were in most in need of compassion in their lives and still refuse to recognize that need in others. This mystery is how the play began.

About two years ago a friend and former intern at The New Group, asked if she could give my play to Associate Artistic Director, Ian Morgan . We set up a reading and began to work with one another on the rewrites. Shortly thereafter, I met Artistic Director Scott Elliott and it became clear that The New Group was just as invested in telling this story and figuring out the mystery, as I was. My collaboration with them has been the most challenging and fulfilling of my career. Scott’s insight, his care with my work, and his expectation that we plumb its depth, leave me in a constant state of terror and elation, which is perfect because, that’s the only way I'm ever able to write anything worthwhile. Together, I think we've discovered a lot of truth about the flawed and funny people of who make up this world, and I'm incredibly excited to share them with you all.

Erika

Winter 2012
World Premiere
RUSSIAN TRANSPORT
By Erika ShefferDirected by Scott Elliott

Set in the Russian-Jewish enclave of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Russian Transport is a deeply personal, emotionally charged tale of an immigrant couple, their two assimilated teenagers and the fierce and fiery upheaval they experience when sexy, mysterious Uncle Boris from the old country comes to stay with them for his shot at the American dream. Part family drama, part heart-pounding thriller, this stunning debut from Erika Sheffer beautifully captures the complex and conflicting layers of striving, joy, pain and terror of one very particular immigrant experience.

Fall 2011
World Premiere
BURNING
By Thomas BradshawDirected by Scott Elliott

Spring 2012
World Premiere
AN EARLY HISTORY OF FIRE
By David Rabe
Directed by Jo Bonney

To Subscribe, Call
The New Group Subscription Telecharge Hotline
212.560.2183