This holiday season, The Brick Theater, Inc presents the World Premiere of LITTLE LORD'S BABES IN TOYLAND, an eccentric musical extravaganza that joyously plunders Victor Herbert's 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland. It is adapted and directed by Michael Levinton with musical direction by Kate Marvin. Originally workshopped as part of the 2009 Ice Factory Festival at the Ohio Theatre, this revamped and reconceived production begins previews November 30 at The Brick with opening night slated for December 3.
In this anarchic and awkwardly sincere incarnation, LITTLE LORD'S BABES IN TOYLAND is stripped-down to make the most of the original script's absurd, nonsensical plot about a pair of young lovers and their fantastical journey from Mother Goose Village to Toyland. Staged as a "recession spectacular," its world is one of brightly painted cardboard and shoddy spectacle, with a cast of five playing over two-dozen roles. Pillaging the foggy recollections of its adapter/director Michael Levinton - who appeared for seven years in a Baltimore community theater production of Babes in Toyland in his youth - BABES conjures a nostalgia for made-up memories in a land of manufactured make-believe. Due to language and content, this production is not recommended for children.
LITTLE LORD'S BABES IN TOYLAND stars Corinne Donly (Adam Rapp's Bingo with the Indians at The Flea), Das Elkin (Jewqueen), Michael Levinton (David Greenspan's Old Comedy at CSC), Tina Shepard (Obie Award-winning co-founder of The Talking Band), and Laura von Holt (a 2010 New York Innovative Theatre Award nominee for Outstanding Featured Actress). It is produced by Jane Jung, with dramaturgy by Sarah Bishop-Stone, designs by Karen Boyer, Bevan Dunbar, Jason Simms and Christina Watanabe, and musical accompaniment by Nicholas Williams (The Gay Agenda).
Founded in 2007, LITTLE LORD produces fun, irreverent, and intelligent theater, marrying big scale ideas with small sized resources. Focusing on offbeat adaptations of classic texts, Little Lord ransacks the theatrical canon in order to forge new plays out of old parts. Past works include: Jewqueen, a slap-dash celebration of the biblical Book of Esther; the NYC premiere of Tennessee Williams' The Pronoun I (Bushwick Starr); (oh my god I am so) THIRST(y), an offshoot of Eugene O'Neill's early melodrama on race and madness (Incubator Arts Project and The Chocolate Factory/Target Margin Theater), which was nominated for 3 New York Innovative Theatre Awards; Balabustas (!), a queer yiddishkeit version of Aristophanes' comedies (HERE Arts Center); and THE BARBIE-STEIA: Curse of the House of Malibu, an absurdist take on The Oresteia starring a chorus of Barbie dolls (Ohio Theatre). For more info visit www.littlelord.org.
Winner of the 2009 Caffe Cino Fellowship Award, The Brick is Williamsburg, Brooklyn's destination for cutting-edge theatrical experience. Home to the critically acclaimed premieres of Bouffon Glass Menajoree (NY IT Award Winner-Outstanding Play), Samuel & Alasdair: A Personal History of the Robot War (NY IT Award Winner-Outstanding Play & Outstanding Ensemble), Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury (NY IT Award Nominee-Outstanding Performance Art Production), Greed: A Musical Love $tory (NY IT Award Nominee-Outstanding Musical), Red Cloud Rising, Theatre of the Arcade and Suspicious Package (NY IT Award Nominee-Outstanding Play), The Brick has hosted some of downtown theater's most innovative artists, including Annie Baker, Young Jean Lee, The Debate Society, Banana Bag & Bodice, Thomas Bradshaw, and Jollyship the Whiz-Bang's Nick Jones. The Brick has also hosted and produced The Iranian Theater Festival, The Comic Book Theater Festival, Fight Fest, Game Play: A Celebration of Video Game Theater, five years of the international NY Clown Theatre Festival, Gemini CollisionWorks' August repertory festival, The Collisionworks.
