THREE PIANOS
WRITTEN, ARRANGED & PERFORMED BY RICK BURKHARDT, ALEC DUFFY, AND DAVE MALLOY
DIRECTED BY RACHEL CHAVKIN
“In the boisterous, offhandedly virtuosic “Three Pianos,” writer-performers Alec Duffy, Dave Malloy and Rick Burkhardt lasso Schubert’s sacred cow and serve it up as barbecue. The trio is a real-life music-theater supergroup...Full-blooded and full-bodied, “Three Pianos” lifts its glass to music, to Schubert and to the type of friendship that can make you laugh off heartbreak. It’s also a superb evening. Cheers.”
“An evening based on Schubert’s “Winterreise” seems an unlikely antidepressant. But Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy and Dave Malloy give this gloomy song cycle an amusing theatrical makeover in “Three Pianos” ...in the scrappy and surreal piece, the 24-part song cycle unfolds amid cleverly constructed mayhem, with Mr. Duffy, Mr. Malloy and Mr. Burkhardt metamorphosing among characters and centuries. ”
The OBIE Award-winning Three Pianos is a theatrical explosion of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle. Three friends — Rick Burkhardt, Dave Malloy and Hoi Polloi Artistic Director Alec Duffy — lead the audience through their respective passions for the piece by performing the songs, grappling with fundamental questions about the nature of music, slipping into the skins of Schubert and friends during one of their famous Schubertiads, and drinking way too much.
Director: Rachel Chavkin
Set Design: Andreea Mincic
Costume Design: Jessica Pabst
Lighting Design: Austin Smith
Sound Design: Matt Hubbs & Dave Malloy
Video Design: Dave Malloy
Stage Management: Jessie Vacchiano
Premiered in 2010 in association with the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator at the Ontological Theater (NYC).
SUBSEQUENT PRODUCTIONS:
New York Theatre Workshop, 2010
American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, MA, 2011
Photos by Ryan Jensen.