News: Notch Theatre Company to Host Community Engagement Events in Connection with "Café Utopia"

Café Utopia featuring Julia Atwood, Al Piper, and Louis Reyes McWilliams Photo credit: John Keon
Notch Theatre Company, which creates community-responsive cultural work to drive change around the pressing issues of our time, will host a series of community engagement and talkback events as part of their World Premiere of Café Utopia by Gwen Kingston (New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and Oprah Daily’s 'Most Anticipated Books of 2024' for Did I Ever Tell You?: A Memoir), directed by Ashley Olive Teague (Founder and Artistic Director of Notch Theatre Company), November 2-23 at the Hudson Guild Theater (441 W 26th St, New York, NY 10001). 

What is Café Utopia all about? Café Utopia seems like the perfect place to work: flexible hours, great benefits, free juice! But when mysterious pamphlets begin to appear, and key equipment breaks down, the staff start to question whether the renowned health food chain is truly all it seems. Preparing for a visit from the company’s reclusive CEO, the employees’ find their skills and endurance pushed to the limit as they compete to prove their total dedication…to the juice. You can read our review of the show here.

The schedule of engagement events is as follows:

Union Orgnaizers Night - Saturday, November 16 at 7pm
Unionizers from Starbucks Workers United will be in attendance, and a documentary film crew creating a movie about unionizing will join the conversation.

Theatre Industry Night - Monday, November 18 at 7pm
Members from SAG and AEA will be in attendance, and leaders from both unions will lead an audience engagement moment during the show.

Amazon Unionizer Night - Friday, November 22 at 7pm
Christian Smalls, an American labor organizer known for his role in leading the Amazon Workers Union in Staten Island, will lead an audience engagement moment during the show. Chris is a co-founder and the former president of the Amazon Labor Union.

Author and Playwright Talkback - Saturday, November 23 at 7pm
Café Utopia playwright Gwen Kingston along with documentary scholar Abby Schroering and Jake S. Friedman (author of The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation's Golden Age) discussion immediately after the show.

Performances for Café Utopia are scheduled on Saturday, November 2 at 7pm, Sunday (preview), November 3 at 7pm (press preview), Thursday, November 7 at 7pm (press preview), Friday, November 8 at 7pm (opening night), Saturday, November 9 at 3pm & 7pm, Sunday, November 10 at 3pm, Thursday, November 14 at 7pm, Friday, November 15 at 7pm, Saturday, November 16 at 3pm & 7pm, Sunday, November 17 at 7pm, Monday, November 18 at 7pm, Thursday, November 21 at 7pm, Friday, November 22 at 7pm, and Saturday November 23 at 7pm. 

Tickets ($20) are available for advance purchase here. 

The performance runs approximately 90 minutes, with no intermission.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Immersive "American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams" Takes Audiences on a Marvelously Crafted Journey

Image
American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Jim Niesen Presented by the Irondale Ensemble Project at The Space at Irondale 85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, NYC October 27-November 26, 2023 Shadenia Savid in Moony's Kids Don't Cry . Photo by Natasha Rotondaro In 1948, Tennessee Williams published American Blues , a collection of five one-act plays, and a remarkable new production of this collection by Brooklyn's Irondale shows that these works have lost none of their power to both entertain and challenge audiences in the intervening three-quarters of a century. Comprising plays written in the decade between 1936 and 1946 - Moony's Kids Don't Cry (1936); The Dark Room (1939); The Case of the Crushed Petunias (1941); The Long Stay Cut Short, or, the Unsatisfactory Supper (1946); and Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1946) - American Blues represents the second part of Irondale's American Century, the first install...
Read more

Review: "How To Eat an Orange" Cuts into the Life of an Argentine Artist and Activist

Image
How To Eat an Orange Written by Catherine Filloux Based on the writing of Claudia Bernardi Directed by Elena Araoz Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club at The Downstairs at La MaMa 66 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC May 30-June 16, 2024 Paula Pizzi. Photo by Steven Pisano How To Eat an Orange , making its world premiere at La MaMa, does in fact include a real orange as a prop, and its multifarious symbolizations–evoking at different points cultural specificity, family history, matriarchal inheritance, and even a skull–are representative of the play's boundary-blurring, non-linear presentation of memory. The memories in question belong to visual artist, educator, and activist Claudia Bernardi , who lived through several years of her native Argentina's military junta, which held power from 1976 to 1983, before departing her country and eventually settling in the United States. How To Eat an Orange , from Catherine Filloux, a French Algerian American award-winning playwright,...
Read more

Review: From Child Pose to Stand(ing) Up: "Yoga with Jillian" and "Penguin in Your Ear" at the Women in Theatre Festival

Image
Yoga with Jillian Written by Lia Romeo Directed by Andrew W. Smith Presented by Project Y Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions in association with The Pleasance June 2-17, 2023 Penguin in Your Ear Written and performed by Eliza Bent Directed by Jess Barbagallo June 10, 2023 Part of the Women in Theatre Festival , presented by Project Y Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Michole Biancosino. Photo courtesy of Project Y Theatre This June, Project Y Theatre Company presents the eighth annual installment of its Women in Theatre Festival (WIT), which showcases new work by women and maintains "more than 50% female representation of all artists involved." This year, the festival includes a lobby installation project, titled In the Betweens , from scenic designer Chen-Wei Liao, through which audience members pass on their way into the theater proper. One first chooses first between "light" and "dark" rooms and then moves into "the gardens" before re...
Read more