AND GOD CREATED GREAT WHALES
Download Press Release (Adobe PDF)
For immediate release, please
Contact: Richard Kornberg & Associates 212 944 9444
Richard Kornberg – richard@kornbergpr.com
Culture Project in Association with
Elisha Wiesel Presents:
And God Created Great Whales
Performances Begin February Tuesday, Feb
7 at 45 Bleecker Street.
Opens Sunday, February 12 at 4pm
Created, Composed and Written by Rinde Eckert
Directed by David Schweizer
Performed by Rinde Eckert & Nora Cole
Performances begin February 7th at Culture Project
Now considered a prominent venue for award winning theatre,
Culture Project had its humble beginnings in a former piano manufacturing
factory on East 91st Street. It then moved to a lumberyard at 45
Bleecker Street which it converted into a two-theater performing arts center
with Bombitty of Errors and And God Created Great
Whales as its initial attractions. Now Culture Project has
officially returned to 45 Bleecker making it its permanent home, and will
present And God Created Great Whales, the innovative piece that
launched the Culture Project into prominence over a decade ago. Performances
begin Tuesday February 7 at 8pm, opening is Sunday, February 12 at 4pm.
And God Created Great Whales is a haunting musical adventure that delves into
the psyche of a composer who is trying to create an opera based on Herman
Melville’s Moby Dick. Desperately fighting against a disease
that is eating away at his mind, he must rely on a tape recorder to remind
him of yesterday’s instructions to himself. Rinde Eckert displays his full
creative force in this frenzied, funny, romantic, and moving play.
Elisha Wiesel is the associate producer of And God Created Great
Whales. For the decade since he saw the show in
2000, Elisha has been unable to get its powerful and emotional musical
currents out of his mind. He is deeply appreciative of the decision by
the creative team and Culture Project to remount the work -- and of the
opportunity to be part of its return to NYC.
In 1997, The Foundry Theatre in New York City commissioned Rinde
Eckert to create a musical interpretation of Moby Dick. The work, And
God Created Great Whales, was first workshopped and then presented
at PS122 as a work-in development during January 2000. The finished piece
received its world premiere at Dance Theatre Workshop in June 2000.
Co-produced with the Culture Project, And God Created Great Whales was remounted in July 2000 at 45 Bleecker, with an additional New York run
again at Bleecker Street, from November 2001 to January 2002. Critical
and audience response was extraordinary, including an OBIE Award and a Drama
Desk nomination. The New York Times hailed the piece as “total
magic” while Billboard called it “one of the most strikingly original works
to be seen in New York”.
Rinde Eckert (Composer, Writer, Sound Designer, Nathan) ) and his
work have been produced off-Broadway and at major venues and festivals
throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Off-Broadway: ORPHEUS X (Theatre
for a New Audience), HORIZON (New York Theatre Workshop –
Lucille Lortel Award, Drama Desk nominations), AND GOD CREATED GREAT
WHALES (The Foundry Theatre - Obie Award for Best Performance, Drama
Desk nomination for Unique Theatrical Experience), AN IDIOT DIVINE (The Culture Project), ROMEO SIERRA TANGO (New York Shakespeare
Festival). Regional theater: HIGHWAY ULYSSES (Eliot Norton
Award) and ORPHEUS X (2007 Finalist for Pulitzer Prize in Drama -
both American Repertory Theatre commissions), RAVENSHEAD (Berkeley
Repertory Theater). Touring: HORIZON, AN IDIOT DIVINE, THE GARDENING OF
THOMAS D. Collaborations: SLOW FIRE, Pioneer, Power Failure, SOUND
STAGE, (Paul Dresher, Music), SLIDE, RAVENSHEAD, DREAM HOUSE (Steve Mackey, Music), SANDHILLS REUNION (Jerry Granelli, Music), WOMAN,
WINDOW, SQUARE (The Margaret Jenkins Dance Company - Isadora Duncan
Award). Radio Shows: Shoot the Moving Things and Four
Songs Lost in a Wall. Rinde Eckert has been honored to receive a
Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Marc
Blitzstein Award, and the Alpert Award in the Arts for Theatre.
NORA COLE (Olivia) also originated the role of The Bride in
Rinde Eckert’s Highway Ulysses at A.R.T. Outstanding credits include
work with George C. Wolfe in Caroline or Change(Royal National
Theatre), Jelly’s Last Jam (opposite
Gregory Hines/National Tour opposite Maurice Hines), and On the Town.
Regional Theatre: Fences (GEVA), Doubt(Milwaukee Rep), Jacques
Brel is Alive and Well(Santa Fe Stages - David
Schweizer, Dir.), THE COLORED MUSEUM (Hartford Stage), THE GOOD
TIMES ARE KILLING ME (Second Stage), JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE (Studio
Arena), AVENUE X and Coretta Scott King in I HAVE A DREAM.
Solo shows: VOICES OF THE SPIRITS IN MY SOUL and OLIVIA'S OPUS, a multi-media ode to adolescence. For 15+ years a company member of Vinnette
Carroll's Urban Arts Corp (NYC) and repertory company (Ft. Lauderdale).
Outstanding performances included MEDEA (title role), YOUR ARMS
TOO SHORT TO BOX WITH GOD (Singing Mary - Broadway, National and
European productions), and WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER I'LL SKATE (Kennedy Center). Ms. Cole is an adjunct director and acting coach at
Eastern Connecticut State University, and a graduate of the Goodman School of
Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago. She has received the Women in
Music Award from Actors Theatre of Louisville, a Spencer
Cherashore Fund Individual Artist Grant and is an alumna of the Hedgebrook
Women Writers Retreat.
David Schweizer (Director) is pleased to have directed AND GOD
CREATED GREAT WHALES in all of its incarnations since its premiere with
the Foundry Theater. His highly rewarding collaboration with Rinde Eckert
also includes the award-winning production of HORIZON off-Broadway
(New York Theater Workshop) and on tour. He has been directing new theater,
performance and opera work for nearly forty years both nationally and
internationally, from his controversial New York debut with Shakespeare's TROILUS
AND CRESSIDA to Richard Rodney Bennett's opera THE MINES OF SULPHUR (New
York City Opera) - both at Lincoln Center. His work with experimental theater
companies includes THEATRE X (A History of Sexuality) MABOU MINES
(Greg Mehrten's It's A Man's World) and his own MODERN ARTISTS
COMPANY (Plato's Symposium). He has directed work for solo theater
artists Mike Albo, Sandra Tsing Loh, Marga Gomez, John Fleck, Marc Wolf and
Ann Magnuson; world premiere stagings for playwrights Charles Mee Jr, Michael
Weller, Melanie Marnich, Austin Pendleton, Marlane Meyer, Sam Shepard, Albert
Innauratto, Len Jenkin, Michael Sargent, Han Ong, Ronald Tavel, William
Hamilton, and many others. He recently staged his own adaptation of Ibsen's PEER
GYNT at Kansas City Rep and La Jolla Playhouse, Sheridan's THE
RIVALS at Center Stage Baltimore, and Verdi's MACBETTO at
Boston Lyric Opera. Upcoming, in New York, the world premiere of Tennessee
Williams' last full-length play, IN MASKS OUTRAGEOUS AND AUSTERE.
CULTURE PROJECT is dedicated to addressing critical human rights issues
by shining an artistic spotlight on injustice. Founded by Allan Buchman in
1996, Culture Project has premiered celebrated shows including The
Exonerated, Sarah Jones’ Bridge & Tunnel, Guantanamo:
Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, Lawrence Wright’s My Trip To
Al-Qaeda, Tings Dey Happen, the Lucille
Lortel Award-winning world premiere of George Packer’s Betrayed, and
Temple University’s acclaimed production of In Conflict.
Culture Project also produced Breaking the Silence, Beating the Drum,
a groundbreaking concert at the United Nations to commemorate the abolition
of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Most recently, Culture Project
presented MoLoRa at the Ailey Citigroup Theater and James
X, directed by Gabriel Byrne. In 2012, Culture Project celebrates its
return to the theaters at 45 Bleecker Street. For further information, please
visit CultureProject.org.
ELISHA WIESEL, the son of writer, professor, and Nobel
Laureate Elie Wiesel, is the associate producer of And God Created Great
Whales. Elisha is the Chief Risk Officer of the Securities Division of
Goldman Sachs and earned his BS in Computer Science from Yale University in
1994. He and his wife, Lynn, live in New York City with their son, Elijah,
and daughter Shira.
Culture Project presents And God Created Great Whales at 45 Bleecker Street (near the NE
corner of Lafayette Street). And God Created Great Whales runs through Sunday, March 25,
2012. All performance tickets are $55 except during previews (Feb
7-Feb11) when tickets are $35. Tickets may be purchased online via www.cultureproject.org by phone by calling Ovation at 866-811-4111. Please note unique performance
schedule: Tues Feb 7 - Mon. Feb 13; Wed. Feb 15 - Sun. Feb 19; Tues Feb
21 to Sun. Feb 26; Tues. Feb 28 to Sun. March 4; Tues Mar. 6- Mon. Mar. 12;
Wed Mar. 14-Sun. Mar. 18; Tues. Mar. 20- Sun. Mar. 25. Evening performances
begin at 8pm, Sunday matinee performances at 3pm. Please visit www.cultureproject.org for exact dates and times of performance.
####