Hotel New Work | Open Studio for Live ArtsÂ
present
The Earl of Lear: hybrid performance
Written and performed by Rick DesRochers
Hybrid media design by Phillip Baldwin
Friday , May 27 6pm
FREE. RSVP here
Â
The Earl of Lear explores the theatricality of the Elizabethan soliloquy as an internal truth/honesty with the audience and the intimacy between audience and performer which is even harder to achieve in real life between parents and children, and the effect on these internal struggles on the legacies and the cyclical nature of the fortunes of parents and children and the significance of heredity and legitimacy.
Â
Inspired by a life-long fascination with the play King Lear, beginning at age thirteen growing up in a working-class New Hampshire mill town, coupled with an exploration of the author’s relationship to his absentee alcoholic father during the 1970s, The Earl of Lear, explores the Elizabethan soliloquy as a form of contemporary storytelling that fuses Lecoq physical theatre with the new hybridity of performer-triggered sound and projection, and the integration of VR and AR ‘rabbit-holes’ that deconstruct the general narrative into non-linear paths.
Â
During the residency, multimedia designer Phillip Baldwin and writer/performer Rick DesRochers engage in fusing Elizabethan performance with the new technologies of UI triggers, and non-linear VR pathways. Exploring the integration of the new hybridity into the seventeenth century-inspired physical theatre of Shakespeare, is the focus of our residency for Hotel New Work.
Â
Â
COVID 19: Boosters and KN95 masks are required to enter the venue. Masks will be also available at the door. The safety of our audience and artist is a priority. Thank you for helping us keep Theaterlab a safe space for everyone.
About the Artists
Rick DesRochers is Associate Professor of Theatre and Director of Theatre and Multimedia Performing Arts at Lehman College, City University of New York. He has served as the Director of New Play and Musical Development for the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival; the Goodman Theatre; and Artistic Director of the New Theatre of Boston. Theatre Credits include the NYC Music Theatre Festival; NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts; the Playwrights’ Center of Minneapolis; and the Soho Theatre of London. His work is primarily based in devised multimedia-based theatrical performance, using the training techniques of Ecole Jacques Lecoq and Viewpoints, and includes productions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Brecht’s Life of Galileo, and a devised multimedia production of BUSTED! created with choreographer Amy Larimer and hip-hop composer DJ Far Fetch.
Phillip Baldwin, MFA Yale, Associate Professor, Stony Brook University. Over 30 years of integrating the arts and design, with technology. Prof. Phillip Baldwin’s Immersive environments, interactive projection mapping, and scenic designs for theatre and digital Media installations have been seen all over the world. He is a New York City-based designer and digital media and events artist who has received many national and international Prizes and grants such as two Japan Foundation Awards, Korea Foundation, The Rome Prize, National Endowment for the Humanities, NYSCA, and many grants in Korea and Singapore. He was a co-director of the New York Center of Media Arts and he has worked extensively on telematic, and immersive forms such as UX, VR, and AR integrating these forms within public arts within an urban setting. He has completed many projects in telecommunications, social VR, and the arts under a Korean National Industrial Development grant and as the minister of culture. He is devoted to the means and methods of developing global cultural collaborations with various media. He is an Associate Professor At Stony Brook where he teaches various courses in design, Urban theory, art, film, performance, and technology. He has current research directions and funding in social Virtual Reality and augmented reality and various ‘hybrid’ projects with the ‘meta-verse’.
About Hotel New Work
Hotel New Work is a curated series providing artists and audiences with time and space to take a detailed look at the theater-making process in an open studio setting. The program provides short-term residencies, including 40 hours of rehearsal time and performance space, to collaboratively-driven companies in the midst of creating ambitious new work. HNW serves as an artistic respite, where new works are given space to breathe, grow, and engage with outside eyes at an early stage. It is a place where artists of various disciplines can unpack their bags, display their ideas, and share the room keys with engaged spectators.Â
Pick up your key. Unpack your ideas. Stay awhile.