Unnamed Broadway Musical: The Musical!

April 14—May 19, 2012

Organized by Kara Hearn

Directed by Sarah Cameron Sunde

This spring interdisciplinary video artist, Kara Hearn is mounting a defiantly optimistic, barebones, experimentally cast production that uses an orphan-themed Broadway musical, we have been advised not to name (hereafter referred to as “[unnamed Broadway musical]”), as its point of departure. Denied the right to perform any of the original material in the gallery, the cast, under the guidance of Hearn’s creative team (Director Sarah Cameron Sunde, Assistant Director Trent Anderson, Composer/Music Director Christopher Berg, and Choreographer Pia Monique Murray) will have the absurd task, that is, the creative challenge of generating a production that somehow fulfills the performers’ sincere desire to be in [unnamed Broadway musical] without them actually being in [unnamed Broadway musical].

This impractical project will take place in consultation with a lawyer over 5 weeks at the EFA Project Space in Manhattan. The project will exist as an ongoing live performance (rehearsals will be open to the public) and in its final form as a 30 to 45 minute video documenting the process of putting on the production, from auditions to opening night. The project will also serve as an inquiry into the murkiness of copyright law and fair use for artists interested in working with the pervasive popular content that so intimately shapes our notions of identity and self.

All of the performers will be adults and the casting of each part will be based more on the willingness and desire of the performers than on singing, dancing ability, or appearance. We hope to tap into a population who perhaps fantasized as children about being the orphan star of [unnamed Broadway musical] or being in [unnamed Broadway musical], but for whom it wasn’t a possibility perhaps because of gender, race, talent, or other circumstantial barriers. Through interviews with the cast each person's relationship to the idea of abandonment / being overlooked will be explored in the hopes of uncovering the allegorical appeal of the orphan tale.


EVENTS

April 14, 12-6pm
Auditions

April 16, 6-10pm
Rehearsal

April 19, 6-9pm
Rehearsal

April 20, 6-10pm
Rehearsal

April 21, 12-6pm
Rehearsal

April 23, 6-10pm
Rehearsal

April 26, 6-10pm
Rehearsal

April 30, 6-10pm
Rehearsal

May 5, 12-6pm
Rehearsal

May 10, 6-10pm
Rehearsal

May 11, 6-10pm
Rehearsal

May 12, 11a-4pm
Rehearsal

May 14, 6-10pm
Rehearsal

May 17, 6-10pm
Rehearsal

May 18, 6-10pm
Rehearsal

May 19, 12-6pm
Rehearsal

May 19, 7-9pm
Final Performance and Screening of the movie, Unnamed Broadway Musical: The Musical! (TBD)