CRAVE

OBIE-winning theater company Hoi Polloi announces its upcoming production of Sarah Kane’s CRAVE, running from October 9 - 24 at the East Village Basement. Duffy’s staging brings a sharp, visceral approach to Kane's poetic, polyphonic symphony of desire, trauma, and human connection. In CRAVE, Kane strips away traditional narrative structure, using four interlocking voices to navigate a haunting landscape of lost love and psychological survival. Duffy’s intimate, subterranean production immerses the audience into the raw, lyrical intensity of Kane's most formally-adventurous work. 

CAST: Leah Del Rosario, Maggie Hoffman, Jonah O’Hara-David, Julian Rozzell, Jr.

CREATIVE TEAM:

Director and Scenic Design: Alec Duffy

Composer: Steven Leffue

Assistant Director: Luke Wisniewski

PERFORMANCES

Friday, October 9: 7:30 pm

Saturday, October 10: 7:30 pm

Sunday, October 11: 7:30 pm

Thursday, October 15: 7:30 pm

Friday, October 16: 7:30 pm

Saturday, October 17: 7:30 pm

Sunday, October 18: 7:30 pm

Wednesday, October 21: 7:30 pm

Thursday, October 22: 7:30 pm

Friday, October 23: 7:30 pm

Saturday, October 24: 7:30 pm

Duration: 50 minutes

CONTENT WARNING: available here.

ACCESSIBILITY: The venue is not ADA-accessible -- there is a full staircase from the street level leading down to the space. There is also no bathroom for attendees. 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Sarah Kane (1971-1999) wrote five plays and one screenplay which, despite initial hostility from professional theatre critics, are now regarded as modern classics, performed and studied around the world. Blasted, produced at the Royal Court in January 1995, employed an innovative dramatic structure and cast an unflinching eye on the links between the atrocities of war, rape, and abusive relationships. Phaedra's Love (directed by Kane at the Gate Theatre in May 1996), and Cleansed (in the Royal Court's temporary home, the Duke of York's, in May 1998) received unappreciative reviews at home but were highly acclaimed elsewhere. Her screenplay, Skin, was first televised in June 1997. Originally scheduled for early evening, it screened later over concerns about its depictions of racism and violence. Crave previewed at the Chelsea Centre Theatre in August 1998, before touring to the Traverse Theatre (Edinburgh), the Royal Court (London), Berlin, Dublin, and Copenhagen. Its poetry and experimental form were appreciated both at home and abroad. 4.48 Psychosis premiered posthumously at the Royal Court in June 2000. Its unique form, and the honesty and power with which it communicates the experience of suicidal despair, have made it one of her most performed works.

Alec Duffy (Director/Scenic Design) is a playwright and director, and the founder of both Hoi Polloi and the Brooklyn performance venue JACK. With Hoi Polloi, he has helmed plays that include Family, Winning is Winning, White on White, Quiet, Comfort, Dysphoria, The Less We Talk, and All Hands, among others. In 2010, he shared an OBIE Award for Three Pianos, a paean to Schubert's Winterreise song cycle, co-written and performed with Dave Malloy and Rick Burkhardt in a production directed by Rachel Chavkin that toured to New York Theatre Workshop and American Repertory Theater after its premiere at Incubator Arts Project. In addition to his work with Hoi Polloi, he directed acclaimed productions of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral at The Cathedral of St. Joseph in Brooklyn, and the English-language premiere of Yukio Shiba’s Our Planet at Japan Society. His production of Moto Osada’s opera Four Nights of Dream premiered at Japan Society in 2017 and toured to the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. Duffy studied at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq and is a Drama League Directing Fellow.

Steven Leffue (Composer) is a West Coast-based sound designer, saxophonist, and computer musician. A long-time collaborator with Hoi Polloi, his work is a synthesis of musical intuition, experimentation, and auditory immersion. Creating for all manner of live performance, recent productions have been seen at the Under the Radar Festival, Vienna Festwochen, and the International Computer Music Conference in Seoul.

Maggie Hoffman (Actor) is a co-founder of the artist-run performance venue The Collapsable Hole and the avant-punk performance ensemble Radiohole, where she has performed for over 25 years. She is also a longtime company member of Elevator Repair Service, most recently appearing as Molly Bloom in Ulysses at The Public Theater. Other recent work includes Madeline Harvey in Richard Foreman's Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey with Object Collection at La MaMa, and Jordan Baum's 21st Century Princess at The Collapsable Hole. www.maggiehoffman.org

Jonah O’Hara-David (Actor) was recently seen in Family (Hoi Polloi), The Broken Lute with The Sparrows, The Addams Family at ADAPT, The Thirteenth Apostle with T.A.R.T. Theater Company, and tiny beautiful things at Mile Square Theater Company. He appeared in Jeremy O. Harris’ documentary Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play. 

Julian Rozzell Jr. (Actor) is a Brooklyn-based actor and multidisciplinary artist whose work spans theater, film, television, music, and visual art. His stage credits include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway, Merry Wives at Shakespeare in the Park, The Skin of Our Teeth at Lincoln Center Theater, and The Master's Tools, performed internationally in Vienna, Austria. Most recently, he portrayed Bird in Zora Howard's Hang Time at the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland. His screen credits included a recurring role on Boardwalk Empire, Fallout, High Maintenance, FBI: Most Wanted, Bull, The Blacklist, Harlem, and numerous other television and film productions. As a visual artist, Rozzell creates layered mixed-media paintings that investigate memory, history, and the traces people leave behind. His acclaimed Selma Series has been exhibited throughout New York and became the foundation for Selma: Songs of the Crossing, the award-winning documentary on which he served as co-writer, field producer, and protagonist.

CRAVE is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. We are also grateful to the following individual donors for their support of this work: Jan Tuchman and Joe Rosta.