THE GOOD FAITHNovember 20 through December 7, 2003 The First Floor Theatre
Harold Dean James, brings his latest piece to La MaMa. A musical dealing with the extremes, the variations of being raised in a religious house hold expressed through music and dance. Opening night benefit November 20.
La MaMa E.T.C.
74A East 4th St.
NY, NY 10003
(212) 475-7710
(between 2nd Avenue & The Bowery)
About La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
La MaMa Experimental Theatre is a world-renowned cultural organization led by founder Ellen Stewart. For 41 years La MaMa has passionately pursued its original mission to develop, nurture, support, produce and present new and original performance work by artists of all nations and cultures. We believe that in order to flourish, art needs the company of colleagues, the spirit of collaboration, the comfort of continuation, a public forum in which to be evaluated and fiscal support.
Since La MaMa's doors first opened in 1961, our primary dedication has been to new works. Many of the best plays and playwrights of the 60's and 70's have come from our lower East Side stages and workshops. The face of Theatre as we now know it on Broadway and beyond was influenced by and infused with the spirit and work of La MaMa artists. Not only is the work we do experimental because of new directions in writing, but also because of the exciting collaborations that we foster, especially musical ones. To date we have presented over 1000 original scores on our stages. Creative risk-taking, experimentation, and challenging artistic boundaries have always been the focus of the work created and performed at La MaMa. La Mama envisions art as a universal language. Cultural pluralism and ethnic diversity have been inherent in the work created at La MaMa. To sustain this global vision, La Mama has become one of this country's foremost presenters of international performance. We are delighted to call artists from over seventy nations part of the La MaMa family. La MaMa has been honored with over thirty Obie Awards, dozens of Drama Desk Awards, Bessie Awards and Villager Awards. La MaMa has an incredible roster of theatre, movie and multi-media luminaries for whom La MaMa was an early artistic home.
La MaMa was one of the first "non-mainline" theatres to support full-time resident companies. This list includes: The La MaMa Troupe directed by Tom O'Horgan; Mabou Mines, directed by Lee Breuer; The E.T.C. Company directed by Wilford Leach; La MaMa Plexus directed by Joel Zwick; The Great Jones Repertory directed by Andrei Serban and Elizabeth Swados; The Jarboro Troupe directed by Hugh Gittens; The Third World Theater Institute, T.W.I.T.A.S (Philippines); Theatre of the Eye directed by Tom Eyen; The Play-House of the Ridiculous, directed by John Vaccaro; The American Indian Theatre Ensemble directed by Hanay Geiogamah; La MaMa Chinatown, directed by Wu Jing-jyi and Ching Yeh of Taiwan -- out of which grew The Pan Asian Repertory directed by Tisa Chang; Ping Chong and Company; Laughing Stone directed by Sin Cha Hong; The Trocadero Gloxinia Ballet directed by Larry Ree; The Yara Arts Group (Mongolia) directed by Virlana Tkacz, which introduced the Buryat; Slant (Asia), created by Rick Ebihara, Wayland Quintero and Perry Yung; Otrabanda directed by Roger Babb; and The Shaliko Company directed by Lee Shapiro. These companies have served as ambassadors of experimental culture in all corners of the world.
La MaMa began as a tiny basement theatre dedicated to the playwright and all aspects of the theatre. In the past 40 years, La MaMa has grown into an arts complex of national and international celebrity. La MaMa houses three theaters, "The First Floor Theatre", "The Club" and "The Annex", an art gallery, a 7-story rehearsal/studio building, and a extensive archive documenting the history of off-off Broadway theatre. The La MaMa facilities are still located on the Lower East Side where they provide dozens of jobs and bring goodwill and health to the neighborhood.
Our First Floor theater is a small, intermediate space in which plays that are in a developmental stage are created. Our large theatre, the La MaMa Annex, had it's official opening on October 18, 1974. We showed the complete trilogy of Electra, Trojan Women, and Medea directed by Andrei Serban, with music composed by Elizabeth Swados, performed by the La MaMa Repertory Troupe, now called The Great Jones Repertory Company. The Annex has near perfect acoustics and has become a world-class venue. Because of its flexible design, companies can construct their world within its walls. It is a chameleon space that changes to suit the art that it embraces. The Annex has been a "port of entry" for artists from around the world. It is a spiritual place where artists can work without fear. The Club, La MaMa's cabaret space, gives voice to established and emerging multi-disciplinary performance artists.
