RADIO DRAMA NETWORK
RADIO DRAMA NETWORK
Supporting the spoken word

LAMAMA Spring 2024

Medea

Apr 11, 2024 - Apr 21, 2024

Directed by Zishan Ugurlu
Technology designed and developed by CultureHub
Performed by the Great Jones Repertory Company

Photo by Sangmin Chae

Medea is a borderless Tekhne Epic for live audiences in person and online conceived by La MaMa's Great Jones Repertory Company, CultureHub, and Zishan Ugurlu. The epic tells the story of Medea, a refugee whose reality is shattered when she learns of her and her children's looming exile, investigating parallels between the myth and the current refugee crisis by collaging real stories, ancient tongues, and hackable audiovisual systems.

A major part of the production is a reimagining of La MaMa’s Medea which was originally composed by the late Elizabeth Swados with direction by Andrei Serban for the company’s celebrated 1972 presentation. The work is experienced in three parts, and the stark, embodied performance is counterpoint to the rich media and technology landscape.

Presented in La MaMa’s recently-renovated 74A E. 4 St. building, Medea unfolds across 3 floors and leverages the building-wide data network to break past the walls of the theatre. Using custom-built interactive technologies, an online audience will affect audio, video, and lighting elements throughout the show. The in-person and online versions follow the same story but are distinctly different iterations that allow audiences to attend both experiences for a deeper look into the world of the production.

LaMama Gala 2023

LaMama Gala 2023

THE BEAUTIFUL LADY at La Mama

La MaMa presents the New York premiere of The Beautiful Lady, an unconventional musical written and composed by Tony Award-nominee Elizabeth Swados, one of Ellen Stewart’s earliest and most frequent collaborators. Set in an artists’ café during the Russian Revolution, the piece uses the words of influential poets from the time, translated by Helen Hayes Award-winner Paul Schmidt.

As the revolution quickly turns and begins to persecute its own, the performers advocate for a free and just society, seeking meaning and purpose in their resistance. In the light of the pressing issues our world faces today, The Beautiful Lady is a poignant reminder of the necessity of free speech and the enduring power of art. Bessie and Obie Award-winning director Anne Bogart directs the music-theatre piece.

The Poetry Society of New York

Having a Coke with You, The Poetry Society of New York's podcast sponsored by the Radio Drama Network!

Join Tova Greene (Programs Director of PSNY) as they sit down and have a coke with some of the most iconic poets of today’s day and age! Having a Coke with You allows any listener to have MFA-grade, unfettered access to poetry. This podcast aims to demystify poetry by allowing listeners to get a glimpse of the real person behind award-winning stanzas. With a little something for any listener, welcome to your new favorite literary podcast. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/poetrysocietyny/support

The goal of our Gala is to raise funds and awareness for the Annual New York City Poetry Festival, the largest free gathering of poets in the country! For over a decade, The New York City Poetry Festival has invited poetry organizations and collectives of all shapes and sizes to bring their unique formats, aesthetics, and personalities to the festival grounds, which are ringed with a collection of beautiful Victorian houses and tucked beneath the wide, green canopies of dozens of century old trees. By offering a unique setting for literary activity, the New York City Poetry Festival electrifies arts and literature and brings poetry to new light in the public eye.

The Poetry Society of New York is honored to produce this iconic event, to build stages—literally and figuratively—for NYC’s vibrant, diverse poetry community to gather, express themselves, hear and be heard. We can’t do this vital work without you. With your help, we hope to make this year's offering richer than ever.

Our Gala is a love letter to NYC’s rich literary history and groundbreaking literary future; we seek to unite the old world, New York glamor of Gramercy Park and the upstart energy of The Poetry Society of New York. The event will include live music and a cocktail hour from 7-8:30pm, a brief presentation and live auction beginning at 8:30pm, and an open bar and immersive performance elements throughout. Black tie or festive formal attire is encouraged.

Champagne in hand, we will toast to you, our generous patrons, supporters, and lovers of the arts. We cannot wait to convene in supporting this city’s greatest literary gathering.

 
 
 
 

The Poetry Society of New York's podcast sponsored by the Radio Drama Network!

Join Tova Greene (Programs Director of PSNY) as they sit down and have a coke with some of the most iconic poets of today’s day and age! Having a Coke with You allows any listener to have MFA-grade, unfettered access to poetry. This podcast aims to demystify poetry by allowing listeners to get a glimpse of the real person behind award-winning stanzas.

With a little something for any listener, welcome to your new favorite literary podcast.

 

Join us at the NYC Poetry Festival! https://poetrysocietyny.org/upcoming

Every year on the last weekend in July, the New York City Poetry Festival unites the vast and diverse New York City poetry community on the idyllic summer paradise of Governors Island. The festival invites poetry organizations and collectives of all shapes and sizes to bring their unique formats, aesthetics, and personalities to the festival grounds, which are ringed with a collection of beautiful Victorian houses and tucked beneath the wide, green canopies of dozens of century old trees. The purpose of the New York City Poetry Festival is to liberate New York poets and their work from the dark corners of bars, bookstores, and universities. By uniting the largest community of poets in the country and offering a unique setting for literary activity, the New York City Poetry Festival electrifies arts and literature and brings poetry to new light in the public eye. 

 
 

Since 1966, within the walls of INTAR’s various (mostly NYC-owned) spaces, INTAR’s artists have produced work whose impact circles around, ripples outward, and intersects with other influential artists.

The profound contribution to American theater of INTAR’s Founding Artistic Director, Max Ferrá, was revisited by the NY Times in a profile that honored his passing in February 2017.

“We have created the Latino playwright in this country,” Mr. Ferrá declared in 2004, “They exist, they have a voice.” INTAR continues to preserve his vision of providing a dedicated space to nurture Latine artists through every aspect of our organization, from productions to artist incubation and instruction programs such as New Works Lab and Unit52.

 

CUNY TV

Independent New York television station CUNY TV has been educating and informing city viewers for three decades. The largest university television station in the country, its cable distribution in the city’s five boroughs is enhanced by digital broadcast on Channel 25.3, expanding its reach in the tri-state area to a 35-mile radius from Times Square.

This advance – enabling the station to more than quadruple its television audience, from nearly 1.7 million cable households in New York City to 7.3 million broadcast households in the New York metro area – is made possible by the merging of technical operations with NYC Media’s WNYE/Ch. 25 at CUNY TV’s headquarters at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street in the City University of New York Graduate Center.

CUNY TV continues to be cablecast on Ch. 75 (Spectrum and Cablevision/Optimum Brooklyn), Ch. 77 (RCN) and Ch. 30 (Verizon)

INTAR, one of the United States’ longest running Latino theater producing in English, works to:

  • Nurture the professional development of Latino theater artists.

  • Produce bold, innovative, artistically significant plays that reflect diverse perspectives.

  • Make accessible the diversity inherent in America’s cultural heritage.