Dzieci Theatre's 22nd annual holiday show now available for On Demand viewing.
December 10-24 on Stellar
"These misfits and lost souls, each stranger and more fascinating than the last, made up the most vivid and compelling collection of characters I have encountered in some time. Full of humor and pathos... with moments of irreverent buffoonery and moments of divine grace." -- New York Theatre Review
"The comical and maudlin feature in the Fools Mass, to be sure; but only using deft touches to illustrate the much deeper compassion which permeates the entire performance...Over and over again, the cast manages to re–center the ceremony and gather the frayed threads of dissipated attention, illogic, and irrational stupidity together into a single piece of fabric." -- Parabola
"Portrayed with heart, and innocence, and sincerity... entertainment first and foremost, and you won’t leave feeling anything but peace and good will towards men." -- Opplaud
Since 1998 Dzieci Theatre has presented their roving holiday production of FOOLS MASS at multiple churches and performance spaces throughout New York City, including a stop at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine that routinely sells out. This year, the annual tradition was livestreamed from Bushwick's Sure We Can on Sunday, December 6th. By popular demand, a recorded version of the live performance will be available to stream on demand December 10 - 17. Running time is 50 minutes. Tickets are $12 per device at www.dziecitheatre.org.
FOOLS MASS is set during the plague years of the 14th century. When a motley group of village idiots gather for holiday mass, they discover that their beloved pastor has met an untimely death. So they decide to carry on and perform their own mass as best they can. FOOLS MASS celebrates the sacred and profane, the miracle of life and the enigma of death, all with enchanted choral singing, riotous comic buffoonery, and extraordinary dramatic invention.
FOOLS MASS is conceived, directed, and designed by Matt Mitler. It will be performed live by Megan Bones, Yvonne Brechbuhler, Ryan Castalia, Audrey Dimola, Felicity Doyle, Thea Garlid, Jesse Hathaway, Matt Mitler, and Isaac Norman-Sokoll. The production team includes Karen Hatt (costumes) Ryan Castalia (site supervisor), and video by Troy Hahn. It is co-produced by Sure We Can (Ana De Luco, Executive Director).
Founded in 1997, Dzieci (djyeh-chee) is an international experimental theatre ensemble dedicated to a search for the “sacred” through the medium of theatre. Integrating techniques garnered from such theatre masters as Jerzy Grotowski, Eugenio Barba and Peter Brook, and ritual forms derived from Native American and Eastern spiritual disciplines, Dzieci aims to create a theatre that is as equally engaged with personal transformation as it is with public presentation. Past work includes Makbet, a version of the Scottish play for four actors who spontaneously trade off roles; A Passion, the Biblical tale as set in the shadow of the Warsaw ghetto; The Devils of Loudun, inspired by Aldous Huxley's 1952 novel; Cirkus Luna!, the worst family circus act ever; and Ragnarok, the End Days fable from Norse mythology. Their work has been seen at venues including La MaMa, The Irondale Center, The Brick, P.S. 122, Rockaway Center for the Arts, St. Marks Theater, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the cell, as well as countless churches and community centers in the tri-state area and beyond. For more info, visit www.dziecitheatre.org
Sure We Can is a non-profit recycling center, community space and sustainability hub in Bushwick, Brooklyn where canners (people that collect cans and bottles from the streets to make a living) come together with students and neighbors through recycling, composting, gardening and arts. Last year, they collected over 10 million cans and bottles and composted over 50 tons of organic waste.