Big Dance Theater directors Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar sample fragments of iconic film scripts and novels, divorced from their narrative contexts, to create a kinetic collage of political rhetoric, pathos, paranoia, and suburbia.

Lawn chairs, telephones, fur coats, and pistols mingle on a stage with Astronauts, Bolsheviks, and American nuclear families as revolutionary Moscow collides with late-20th-century Houston.

Alan Smithee Directed This Play: Triple Feature contemplates the slippery nature of creative control, history, its fictions, and the inextricable link between the personal and the historical.

PREMIERE:
March 27, 2014 | Les Subsistances

HISTORY:

July 8 – 12, 2015
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Doris Duke Theatre
Becket, MA

September 30 – October 4, 2014
Brooklyn Academy of Music – Next Wave Festival
BAM Harvey Theater
Brooklyn, NY

August 21 – 23, 2014
Tanz im August Festival
Hebbel am Ufer – HAU1
Berlin, Germany

March 27 – 30, 2014
Week_End Ça Va? Festival
Les Subsistances
Lyon, France

CREDITS:
Co-directed by Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson
Choreographed by Annie-B Parson and The Company

Performed by Tymberly Canale, Elizabeth DeMent, Chris Giarmo, Cynthia Hopkins, Paul Lazar, Aaron Mattocks, and Kourtney Routherford

Video by Jeff Larson
Scenery by Joanne Howard
Sound by Tei Blow
Lighting by Joe Levasseur
Costumes by Oana Botez
Music Director and Vocal Arrangements Chris Giarmo

General Manager Molly Hickok
Producer Aaron Rosenblum
Production Manager Brendan Regimbal

Associate Video Design Keith Skretch
Audio Engineer and System Specialist Jamie McElhinney
Assistant Sound Design Jimin Brelsford
Stage Fight Advisor Ellen Saland
Dialect Coach Amanda Quaid
Legal Advisor George Sheanshang
Costumes construction by Glenda Beck, Bevan Dunbar, Karen Boyer, Talla
Youth singers recorded by Dave Snyder at Guilford Sound

‘Alan Smithee Directed This Play’ should be on every dancegoer’s radar.” –NY Times

*

“A production of strength, intelligence and charm.” — BERLINER ZEITUNG

Alan Smithee Directed This Play is a production of Big Dance Theater, Inc. It was co-commissioned by Les Subsistances in Lyon, France and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Additionally, the project received funding support from the: United States Artists Ford Fellowship; MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with additional funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Trust for Mutual Understanding; Mertz Gilmore Foundation; Starry Night Fund; National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New York Theater Program; the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the W Trust; the Kings Fountain; and the McGue Milhiser Family Trust.

Alan Smithee Directed This Play was made possible in part with a research and development residency and co-production support by The Hatchery Project, a multi-year collaborative residency partnership between RED Arts Project (Philadelphia, PA), Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL), Vermont Performance Lab (Guilford, VT) and The Chocolate Factory Theater (Long Island City, NY) with lead support by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and additional funding by the National Endowment For The Arts.

Alan Smithee Directed This Play was also funded in part by the Big Dance Theater Creation Circle, a group of lead individual contributors committed to the development and support of the company’s newest works.