With The UnConvention: An American Theater Festival, NYC Artists Fight For Political Change and Awareness

The UnConvention: An American Theater Festival runs from August 27th to September 11th and features six challenging, politically-charged plays by six cutting edge New York City theater companies. The UnConvention takes place during and after the Republican National Convention in a theater complex just a few blocks from Madison Square Garden.

(PRWEB) August 1, 2004 -- On August 27th, The UnConvention: An American Theater Festival will debut the first of its featured plays by six cutting edge New York City theater companies: The Kiva Company, The Management Co., One Year Lease, Stages 5150, Stone Soup Theatre Arts, and The Subjective Theatre Company. Brought together by a mutual distrust of the Republican Partys choice of New York as the venue for their nominating convention, the participants in The UnConvention will stage performances of provocative and inspiring political theater at a performing arts complex just blocks from Madison Square Garden, where the Republican leadership will gather to cheer on George W. Bush.

Aiming to mobilize young voters, provoke meaningful discussion, and challenge audiences to become more active and more aware, The UnConvention will also sponsor panel discussions, workshops, and debates. Voter registration tables will be set up in the lobby of each theater and performance playbills will be stuffed with election literature.

At a time when nearly 48,000 delegates, corporate executives, party workers, and media representatives will descend on NYC for the Republican National Convention running from August 30th to September 2nd, the participants in the UnConvention want to ensure that other voices are heard-voices that encourage citizens to ask tough questions, demand clear responses, take action, and mobilize for change.

Since the whereabouts of political protests are such hot topics, involving police barricades, delayed okays, and city permits, the organizers of The UnConvention have chosen the most productive forum and location for exploring viewpoints and exercising the freedom of speech: the stage. And not just any stage-an entire theater complex on 36th street, just a few short blocks from the Republican National Convention. While preparing this festival, the artists involved have begun to assemble an impressive list of supporters, including Noam Chomsky, Anne Bogart, Richard Schechner, and Charles Mee.

The power of theater to mobilize change has been seen before. Rent and Angels in America were instrumental in informing the public about AIDS. The Laramie Project confronted violence against homosexuals and The Exonerated has championed the anti-death penalty cause. Stephen Sondheims Assassins has finally found a climate that is ready for a darkly political musical about the other" kind of American who feels marginalized and left behind by the American Dream. Like The Embedded, the plays chosen for The UnConvention are motivated by recent events. The six member companies of the festival will challenge their audiences to see how they truly feel about rousing issues such as personal freedom, the consequences of war, the limits of power, and the effects of living in a culture of fear, among other issues.

The Plays

The UnConventions lineup includes the Subjective Theatre Companys The White Plague, a savage satire of war by Karel Capek. One Year Lease revives Jean Anouilhs Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles ancient Greek classic where King Creons chilling authoritarian argument becomes almost as compelling as that of the doomed heroine Antigone. Stone Soup Theatre Arts presents The Trial of God in which three actors, an innkeeper, and a mysterious stranger stage a mock trial after a pogrom, putting God on trial for apathy and inaction during a time of great suffering. The play is based on an event that playwright Elie Wiesel witnessed during the Holocaust.

Three brand new plays will debut at The UnConvention, including Management Co.s This Jungle of Cities, Berrian Eno-Van Fleets modernization of Brechts In The Jungle of Cities. Culled from letters and interviews with soldiers and their families on the warfront and the home front, the Kiva Companys Entrenched in the Oath brings the stories and experiences of our troops in the current Iraq War to the stage. In Randy Andersons new play for Stages 5150 entitled KtP, former child genius Seth Robbins has developed a new weapon of mass destruction and with the help of a well-connected con man and a suicidal flight attendant, is determined to use it.

Tickets can be purchased at www.theatermania.com or by calling 212-352-3101.

For further information, check out www.TheUnConvention.org. To set up an interview with The UnConvention directors, please call Sarah Parvis at 917.754.6353.

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