PLATONOV

A new multimedia adaptation of Chekhov’s play from Jay Scheib. Set in an outdoor space with a voyeuristic, carnival atmosphere, Platonov, will take place inside and outside of a modular home while video cameras project the action.

Jay Scheib is at the forefront in developing new forms in theatre, known for “mixing multimedia with deadpan-cool” (Time Out New York). Named by American Theater Magazine as one of the 25 Artists who will shape the next 25 years of American theatre, he is a director, designer and author of plays, operas and live art events.

WE BUILT THIS CITY

A giant public construction site that uses thousands of cardboard boxes and the energy and ingenuity of kids and families to build a magnificent imagined city in one day. At the end of the event, everyone joins in trampling the city down into a gloriously chaotic heap of cardboard rubble.

Polyglot is Australia’s leading creator of experiential, interactive and installation theatre for children aged up to 12 years. Their artists view children as genuine collaborators, facilitating a professionally-led artistic process to create imagined worlds where audiences actively participate in performance through touch, play and encounter.

100% SAN DIEGO

A customized, reality-based piece in which San Diego’s population will be represented by 100 people. Each participant will be chosen according to select statistical criteria that reflect the city’s demographics from census data. These 100 citizens create a living, breathing portrait of San Diego: part theatre, part reality, and 100% San Diego.

Germany’s Rimini Protokoll have exerted a powerful influence on the alternative theatre scene as leaders and creators of the theatre movement known as “Reality Trend” (Theater der Zeit). Each project begins with a concrete situation in a specific place and is then developed through an intense exploratory process.

NEW PUPPETRY PROJECT

Master puppeteer Basil Twist, whose exquisite work has been seen at the Playhouse in Dogugaeshi and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, returns to the Playhouse with a new project created specifically for the WoW Festival. His latest work will feature his legendary puppets as sea monsters emerging from the ocean on a La Jolla beach.

Basil Twist continually expands the realm of puppetry by creating new works that have been described as “kaleidoscopic, romantic, joyful, haunting and hallucinogenic.” He is the recipient of an Obie Award, two Drama Desk Awards and a New York Innovative Theatre Award.

KAMCHÁTKA

Kamchàtka revolves around eight characters, lost in a city. They move together, each carrying a suitcase and a souvenir. Be they travellers or immigrants, they are open to the world around them, showing us how to view everything as if it were the first time we are seeing it, teaching us to look at ourselves through their eyes. Kamchàtka is an improvisation show which deals with the essence of theatre in public space, crossing the borders between theatre, game and life.

THE CAR PLAYS: SAN DIEGO

Back by popular demand after a sold-out run in Spring 2012, The Car Plays: San Diego, are intimate ten-minute plays, each taking place in a car. A drama or comedy unfolds just inches away from the viewer in an experience that “combine[s] the pleasures of site-specific theater and voyeurism” (Los Angeles Times).

Moving Arts, called “The tiny Silver Lake theatre with an enviable reputation,” is dedicated to the production of original works. For the past 19 years, Moving Arts has continuously produced adventurous new plays and an annual one-act festival in a variety of venues across Los Angeles.

OUR TOWN

With actors and audience sharing a meal together, Thornton Wilder’s classic is re-imagined as an intimate backyard gathering featuring live, original music and real-time video assemblage.

Director Tom Dugdale holds a Master of Fine Arts in Direction from University of California, San Diego and is the recipient of the 2012 Princess Grace Award in Theatre with La Jolla Playhouse. He wrote and directed Making Love Over There for the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2012, named Best of Fringe. Upcoming projects include Cry Old Kingdom at the 2013 Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theater of Louisville.

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART PROJECTS

Partner institution MCASD will present works by renowned visual and performance artists James Luna, Kate Gilmore and Jacolby Satterwhite. In a new work commissioned by MCASD, Luna takes up the iconic image of the American Indian storyteller as a vehicle for his narratives of contemporary Indian life. His fireside stories incorporate multimedia projections and live music, interweaving past and present, autobiography and cultural identity, and poignancy and humor. Projects by Gilmore and Satterwhite will be announced shortly.

In his performances and conceptual artworks, James Luna, a Luiseño Indian living on the La Jolla Reservation in northern San Diego County, employs humor, satire, and cultural anthropology to address myth and reality in American Indian culture. Luna’s work has been collected by museums nationally and internationally, and he was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution to represent the National Museum of the American Indian at the Venice Biennale in 2005.

Kate Gilmore’s work combines performance, sculpture, and video to explore ideas of feminist struggle, physical labor, slapstick comedy and various legacies of twentieth century art. In her performances staged for video, or public works incorporating other performers, she often employs visual motifs derived from the corporate and domestic world, and confronts tasks and obstacles that must be accomplished or overcome in real time.

Rising art world star Jacolby Satterwhite creates exuberant artworks integrating drawing, dance, video and 3-D animation to explore themes of memory, desire and heroism. The New York-based artist frequently performs in concert with elaborate costumes, props and videos. In Satterwhite’s virtual universe, 3-D modeled versions of the artist’s body mix with animated figures as well as drawings made by his mother and collaborator, an artist who struggles with schizophrenia. This partnership results in a compelling overlap of distinct visual trajectories, in which a private, domestic world collides with popular culture, art history, and politics.