What Are Theatremakers Doing to Present Safe Productions? In Hundred Days, real-life married couple Abigail and Shaun Bengson (the duo behind Ars Nova's The Lucky Ones) detail the story of how they . Dan Meyer They begin awkwardly and self-consciously, as if reluctant to commit even to performing. Some of those tapes, she said, have been to prison and back cassettes on which her budding-songwriter self set down in music the fraught emotions she couldnt speak. And Ms. Bengson, in particular, finds herself opening baggage from her past that would seem to make happiness with someone else impossible. We filmed it at my moms, in the house I grew up in, which is where we have been staying for the past six months, Abigail said. James Monroe Iglehart unveils the list of nominees for a season cut short due to the pandemic. But its what Im trying to do., One of my sisters, she said, Dont let your fear get in the way of the truth of this, Ms. Bengson added. The various safety protocols were released as both new and returning shows enter rehearsals. The play is currently in previews at the August Wilson Theatre. By can be accessed on the Arena Stage YouTube channel. Yet the acceptability of drawing bystanders into ones own art is one of the great ethical debates in any kind of autobiography. | Dan Meyer They have received the Jonathan Larson and Richard Rogers Award and nominations for the Drama Desk, Drama League, and Lucile Lortel awards. is streaming free on YouTube.
The Off-Broadway company recently canceled its Under the Radar Festival due to rising case numbers. They've learned the best from indie music videos and are able to convey the beauty and reality of Vermont winter while eking out metaphors in its landscape. Dan Meyer I wonder if she really wanted to give me eggs, or if she just wanted to make sure I was O.K.. The family saga, starring Adrian Lester, Simon Russell Beale, and Adam Godley, plays the Nederlander Theatre. "So at the time, we started writing music as a way to process those feelings and get closer and move through all the fear.". But seemingly off-the-cuff stage patter in the beginning later becomes needed background for plot points in the play. By Logan Culwell-Block The Harold Pinter classic opens October 21 as part of the theatre companys Welcome Back season. Abigail Bengson is such a compelling, empathetic figure, with a voice grounded in a folk, shape note singing and gospel as she expresses herself further with upraised hands. | Dan Meyer The story, which is reminiscent of the more fully-realized Broadway musical, "Once," unfolds through short dialogues that are alternately pithy, poignant and playful. Check out Samantha Barks, Stephanie McKeon and more in costume. Their video for The Keep Going Song has been viewed over 4 million times. By | A half-hour into an emotionally delicate interview, there was a soft knock on the front door: Ms. Gancher, bringing over some eggs in the shell. By | For a musical that's so much about creating memories to last and evoke a lifetime, Hundred Days succeeds brilliantly in etching its eloquent lines and infectious melodies indelibly on the brain. Dan Meyer We made the whole piece on our cell phones, filming each other and things that were going on.. Shaun's fast and folky acoustic-guitar strumming and Abigail's delightful alt-rock vocals establish a beautifully resonant intimacy and then swell into a magnificent full-ensemble sound with the drums thundering and the ensemble singing in transcendent unison. May 7, 2021. Hundred Days - New York Theatre Workshop - Abigail and Shaun Bengson Thats true even when you change names and details, and create what Mr. Bengson called the novel-myth version of the story. | Both Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker have been fighting cases of COVID, which put the Neil Simon revival on hiatus. Abigail Bengson says that she. Part of that was an awareness, new to Mr. Bengson, of what a fragile thing a family can be. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. In a dynamic staging by director Anne Kauffman, the show has the look and feel of a rock concert, complete (at least on opening night) with a roaring crowd. Four years ago, shortly after they got the commission from Ars Nova that would result in The Lucky Ones, Ms. Bengson had a miscarriage an event that rocked us very deeply, she said, and set us on this path of wanting to write about family and trauma..
Dan Meyer The story looks at embracing uncertainty, taking a leap, and loving as if you only had a hundred days to live. Talaura Harms Leah Putnam Andrew Gans Adina Verson, at center, in The Lucky Ones, which considers the impact of a killing on Ms. Bengsons seemingly idyllic childhood. St. Ann's Warehouse to Begin Indoor Performances With The Bengsons Manhattan Theatre Clubs New York premiere ofWhere the Mountain Meets the Sea, written by AUDELCO Award nomineeJeff Augustinis in its final week of performances atNew York City Center Stage I. BroadwayWorld was there for the special night and you can check out photos from the red carpet here! Writing music together has been a profound way that we learn about each other, and what we think about the world, and how we think about ourselves. const styleElement = document.createElement('style');
A young couple meets, falls in love and gets married right away, only to find out that one of them has a terminal illness and not long left to live. Melissa Kaitlyn Carter is a cheery presence as Sarah's best friend Caroline, and Dalene Mason is mournfully somber as Will's forbiddingly distant father. So by bringing viewers into their homewarts and allthey will see the dirty dishes in the background as the Bengsons sing and dance together, providing that real intimacy. Ars Nova, which also co-produced Sundown, Yellow Moon, a Rachel Bonds play with music by the Bengsons, has an estimable record with nontraditional musicals that includes birthing Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812. It was the company that matched Ms. Gancher with the Bengsons several years ago. Three weeks later, the couple got married. Three of their singles have been featured on So You Think You Can Dance (FOX). . Part co-authored memoir and part touching voyage into an emotional soundscape, this new work in development is a beautiful testament to the sort of inquires made in tandem by the human mind and spirit. | "My Joy is Heavy!" Their theater work includes Sovereignty Hymns (La Jolla Playhouse), The Keep Going Song (Actors Theatre of Louisville), My Joy is Heavy (Arena Stage), Hundred Days (La Jolla Playhouse, New York Theatre Workshop, US Tour), The Lucky Ones (Ars Nova), Where the Mountain Meets the Sea (ATLs Humana Festival; Manhattan Theatre Club), Anything That Gives Off Light (Edinburgh Theatre Festival), Youll Still Call Me By Name (New York Live Arts, Jacob's Pillow), and Iphigenia in Aulis (Classic Stage Company). Please consider supporting us bywhitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.Thank you! The shift in focus from outside to inside clarifies and intensifies what was already an affecting piece. PULLS OUT by The Bengsons (Tiny Desk Contest 2020 Entry!) As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Up Close & Sweaty with Haus of Sequins, Nightbeast & Kiml, Vienna Light Orchestra Presents: A Tribute to Broadway & The Greatest Showman, The Map for Healing & Recovery Orientation & Sign Up, Darke County Food Truck Rally & Craft Show, Bridgerton Inspired Friends Chai Tea Party. To wit: Whether by choice, chance or ultimately and unavoidably death, you will be separated from the person you love most. September 1, 2021. Hundred Days, the luminous musical memoir by the Bengsons and Sarah Gancher, is an everyday horror story with a very provisional happy ending like so many chapters of human existence. The limited engagement of the Jason Robert Brown revue will begin in February 2021. Hundred Days Z SPACE Hello friends!Here's our official Tiny Desk Contest 2020 submission!THE BENGSONSAbigail and Shaun Bengson are a married composing and performing duo who have. Natan Zamansky November 9, 2020. Shaun Bengson, left, and Abigail Bengson in Hundred Days at the New York Theater Workshop, a musical that charts the couples up-down-and-up-again relationship. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/theater/bengsons-the-lucky-ones-ars-nova.html, Abigail and Shaun Bengson, a married pair of singer-songwriters whove turned their personal stories into theater, most recently in The Lucky Ones.. But those three weeks in between meeting and tying the knot, the pair told NBC 7 San Diego, was the . The musical, starring Katrina Lenk and Patti LuPone, was originally slated to open March 22, 2020composer Stephen Sondheims 90th birthday. Folk-Punk Musical Hundred Days Opens Off-Broadway | Playbill The Bengsons performing in The Lucky Ones, which is the second part of a trilogy. Their theater work includes. Recent notable theatre interviews include legendary actor Ben Vereen, Broadway make-up artist Angelina Avallone and the extraordinary Idina Menzel. But I cant stop. | The one-day-only event, starring Olivier nominees Rachel Tucker and Rachel John, arrives to the West End October 11 following a digital production earlier this summer. Our memoir pieces need to reflect whats going on in our own hearts and bodies as we process the world, Abigail said. | A Childhood Eden Seared by Violence. Andrew Gans From left, Jo Lampert, Ms. Bengson and Mr. Bengson in this poignant 90-minute show at New York Theater Workshop. Bursts of banter lead into . Dan Meyer
The incredible Molly Smith [Arena Stage artistic director] reached out to us and said we could create whatever we wanted, Abigail said. Would just being grateful and happy during the same period be a better approach? May 10, 2021. Just last night, the American Theatre Wing presented the 66th Obie Awards, celebrating and honoring Off- and Off-Off-Broadway. The Off-Broadway production will now play until June 5. Sometimes there are wounds so deep that they never all the way heal, he said. Its been incredible that weve gotten to work through the year, and how this song has gone viral, Shaun said. Ms. Bengson is sure of her right to tell such a story onstage because it is a fundamental trauma of her past, overlapping though it does with other peoples pain and struggles. Anne Kauffman and Caitlin Sullivan direct. Almost exactly five years ago, Abigail and Shaun Bengson performed Hundred Days at Know Theatre. Were interested in seeing if we can look at that loss as an opportunity to see the divinity in one another.. The Great Performances broadcast includes interviews with Adrienne Warren, Norm Lewis, Sara Bareilles, Aaron Tveit, Chita Rivera, and more. By The Bengsons A La Jolla Playhouse Commission. The blessed news comes with some worry; they've suffered a miscarriage once before and had complications with the birth of their son. The message of Each Kindness should be shared to people everywhere, and the music of Rootstock Republic should be enjoyed by all. Copyright 2023 DC Theater Arts. I recognize its a little codependent.. And saying, 'yes the world is a terrifying place, yes we don't know how long we'll have with the ones we love, but I'm going to live anyway and I'm going to keep moving forward and let my heart be open and let my heart break as it will.'". February 3, 2022, By Abigail and Shaun Bengson are a married composing and performing duo based in NYC and VT who have performed across the country and around the world. Marc J. Franklin | Three of their singles have been featured on "So You Think You Can Dance" (FOX). He seems gentle, diffident but steely underneath, while theres a sparkle to her, and a healthy dash of punk spicing her earth-mother serenity. So it was no surprise when Arena Stage reached out to the Bengsons to take part in the theaters three part-commissioned music series, Arena Riffs. This is the person, no longer institutionalized, whose life Ms. Bengson is most fearful of harming with The Lucky Ones, an ensemble piece in which a cascade of events results in the dissolution of her family, including her parents marriage. | That was 13 years ago, and today, the dynamic duo composes and performs together around the world. So Will and Sarah decide to shut themselves away from the world and live their last 100 days together as if they were 60 years, celebrating all the birthdays and anniversaries and other cherished memories they would have if they grew old together. The Broadway revival, on hold due to the pandemic, will now begin previews March 9, 2022. (Unlike many other such narratives, it's the guy who's wasting away before his time.) La Jolla Playhouse has announced the presentation of Sovereignty Hymns, a commissioned work that features a video series of original songs exploring questions about reproductive liberty. So, youre welcome, Louie., The Bengsons married 10 years ago, three weeks after their first date. Review Roundup: Sean Hayes Stars In GOOD NIGHT, OSCAR On Broadway! Andrew Gans "To do the show, honestly, I really have to look squarely at what is terrifying me right now, and there's plenty to be afraid of, and say, 'okay, let's keep moving, let's love each other anyway, let's love the world anyway and see what happens,'" Abigail said. In her own family, opinion about the existence of the show is divided some of those depicted vehemently in favor, some opposed. So The Lucky Ones is wounded autobiography veiled in fiction. var s = document.getElementById('sleeknoteScript');
Its become a language we speak together.. Abigail and Shaun Bengson performing in "My Joy Is Heavy!" (Arena Stage) Gift Article It feels something like a privilege to be given access to the melodic intimacies of "My Joy Is Heavy!," a. Theres a line near the start of the new musical The Lucky Ones thats a deliberate hedge an explanation of the rules of the show that also leaves those rules a little murky. Then, in one cataclysmic season, it all falls apart, beginning with a killing that might have been prevented if only the parents hadnt been so committed to a you-choose-your-feelings worldview that they dismissed the signs of mental illness in one of the kids. INTO THE WOODS & More Lead 2023 Drama League Award Nominations. This is a true story, Shaun Bengson tells the audience from the stage of the Connelly Theater in the East Village. The Bengsons. Mr. Bengson, who exudes a defensive deadpan calm that hints at demons scrambling beneath, sums up their chronicle with the jaunty disclaimer, So here it is, the sound of introverts pining! That may not sound like much fun. Andrew Gans Check out photos from opening night here! Shaun and Abigial Bengson. Shaun Bengson, Abigail Bengson, Jeff Augustin, Joshua Kahan Brody, Billy Eugene Jones, Chris Myers From: Photos: Go Inside Opening Night of WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE SEA at Manhattan Theatre Club The Daniel Craig-led production is back after cases of COVID within the company put a pause on performances. Hes going to be a pirate by 5, she said, and her husband laughed again. The physical production is austere, with little in the way of scenery beyond a constellation of light bulbs. Marc J. Franklin Rocking cellist El Beh doubles as the compassionate doctor who has to break the bad news (a far cry from the creepy nurse she played in Symmetry Theatre's recent Carnival Round the Central Figure). ExPats Theatres production of The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield, directed by Karin Rosnizeck, features two great actors, but stumbles with low production quality and a script which doesnt do its characters justice. Arriving at this realization has been the seed for all sorts of lyric reflections, be it from ancient Greek odists, Renaissance sonneteers or pop balladeers. The form in which the husband-and-wife team of Shaun and Abigail Bengson couch their response is a sort of luxuriant, sentimental-cool folk rock, in which fatalistic and angry drumming figures prominently, along with sweet, swirling chords. | Reggie D. White (whose Beyonce parody video "Dunkin Love" is currently going viral) and Amy Lizardo act as stand-ins for the couple in the story, sometimes silently acting out a scene while the Bengsons voice the dialogue in song, and occasionally singing the parts themselves (and forcefully, at that). 'Hundred Days' Theater Review - The Hollywood Reporter Ryan McPhee Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.. The Joaquina Kalukango-led production has been on hiatus since April 7. April 14, 2022, By sleeknoteScriptTag.src = ('//sleeknotecustomerscripts.sleeknote.com/47716.js');
Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum (5/08-5/08), Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum (5/14-5/14), Riverside Center for the Performing Arts (3/15-5/07), Review: THE BODY OF A WOMAN AS A BATTLEFIELD at ExPats Theatre. The first, "My Joy is Heavy!" It's a show that forces both Abigail and Shaun to look at their life and what is terrifying them before they step on stage -- and then face it. By the time of its making, the two and their young son have made their way to her childhood home in snowy Vermont with the likely intent of chronicling their time there in song during an already strange time. I wouldn't want to forget a moment of it. by The Bengsons arenastage1 2.96K subscribers Subscribe 1.2K 50K views 1 year ago Arena Stage is excited to present a newly commissioned filmed music series, Arena Riffs, featuring. Ms. Bengson, 35, has a tale to tell about the autumn she was 15, when her family shattered and the seemingly safe Eden she grew up in was lost forever. La Jolla Playhouse's 'Hundred Days' a musical memoir born from passion September 24, 2021. }
May 25, 2022, By But The Bengsons find catharsis and direction through music and convey a triumphant humanity no matter what the obstacle. The first two months of performances take place with social distancing. Sovereignty Hymns. The Bengsonss distinctive stage presence matches the story they tell. La Jolla Playhouse | Sovereignty Hymns | La Jolla Playhouse October 8, 2020. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Dr. Shaun Rodgers, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Cohen Children's Medical Center part of Northwell Health in New York said his hospital is still seeing an above-average number of brain . My Joy Is Heavy! Their music has been featured several times on So You Think You Can Dance (FOX). The one possible relevance that the period has (besides possible medical advances since then) is how easy it is for Sarah and Will to seclude themselves in their home and remove themselves from any indication of what day or decade it really is. The Bengsons display the pleasures, joys and the emotional tolls of the events of the past year and how they managed to cultivate and hold onto happiness even during these dark, difficult times. 43K Followers, 2,442 Following, 548 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Abigail & Shaun Bengson (@thebengsons) Shaun and Abigail Bengson met in New York City at a party and after talking, decided to start a band together. A look at an Equity-approved musical, an immersive experiment, and an amateur teen show. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Which turns out to be all thats needed for a show that celebrates and laments the elusive radiance of a shared life. Dan Meyer January 2, 2022. Copyright 1991-2023 Playbill Inc. All Rights Reserved. Quirky true love songs - Chicago Reader paragraph.style.width = '0px';
The program, championed by the industry as the "Save Our Stages" act, was slated to begin accepting applications April 8. Shaun Bengson: Credits, Bio, News & More | Broadway World | sleeknoteScriptTag.type = 'text/javascript';
August 11, 2021. comes from the first rate married couple and musical duo The Bengsons, who have previously channeled their exuberant, personal music through theatrical performances. In 2017, the couples Off-Broadway theatrical concert, Hundred Days, toured across the U.S. and was a big hit. Then, the pair started to strip the concept back and they arrived at theirpresent concept: "using the theatricality that we gathered and learned along the way, but in service to a humbler story that is hopefully more honest as well," Abigail said. Abigail and Shaun Bengson are a married composing and performing duo based in NYC and VT who have performed across the country and around the world. October 15, 2020. Hundred Days (the title refers to packing a whole lifes experience into that period of time) was performed in an earlier version in January at the Under the Radar Festival of experimental theater. By Yet she is terrified of compounding. We never hear about any war going on, and Christine Crook's costumes aren't noticeably informed by that period. They also star in the show, with a full band and chorus who . "Hundred Days" runs at La Jolla Playhouse's Mandell Weiss Forum until oct. 21, 2018. Performed from San Francisco to New York to La Jolla to Florida, it got raves, awards and a cast album. Get a first look at photos here! By (ATLs Humana Festival; Manhattan Theatre Club), (New York Live Arts, Jacob's Pillow), and, (piece by piece productions). | The album is produced by The Bengsons, Ian Kagey, and Kurt . The Bengsons create new indie-folk musical for Arena Stage document.head.appendChild(styleElement);
Andrew Gans Otherwise manning a DJ set that includes an old-fashioned gramophone, Jo Lampert gives an achingly resonant performance as Will's best friend Max, a boisterous and bawdy dude whose devotion to his friend is absolute and tinged with (seemingly platonic) yearning. Dan Meyer Kauffman's staging makes full use of Z Space's cavernous performance space at Project Artaud, with the band and the world retreating behind a slowly lowering warehouse door. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Allen Willner's shifting lights accentuate that live-gig atmosphere, bathing the stage in one color or another when it's time to really rock out. Other "Arena Riffs" are "The Freewheeling Insurgents" by Psalmayene 'Psalm" 24, which begins March 31 at 7 p.m. and "A More Perfect Union" by Rona Siddiqui April 14 at 7 p.m. Information can be found here. Abigail said in a phone interview. var sleeknoteScriptTag = document.createElement('script');
Auscultation Prefix And Suffix,
Virus Is Living Or Non Living Justify,
Why Was Binky Recast In Feel Good,
Articles S