Big Dance Theater
Conceived and choreographed by Annie-B Parson
Directed by Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar
The Obie Award-winning mavericks at Big Dance Theater (Alan Smithee Directed This Play: Triple Feature, 2014 Next Wave) take a dizzy intertextual romp through the diaries of Samuel Pepys, weaving music, dance, video, and text into a spectacularly outré portrait of the famed 17th-century philanderer and his tragic wife Bess. Soaked in reverb and dripping with lamé, the ensemble careens through a series of tightly crafted episodes, conjuring Pepys’ penchant for self-improvement, steadfast commitment to infidelity, and endless desire to be en vogue. Splintering the diaries with the radical feminism of the 17th-century playwright Margaret Cavendish and the cult of online annotators at pepysdiary.com, 17c coaxes a century-spanning conversation from a notoriously solipsistic life.
Sound by Tei Blow
Set design by Joanne Howard
Lighting design by Joe Levasseur
Costume design by Oana Botez
Video by Jeff Larson
17c is produced by Big Dance Theater and co-commissioned by Carolina Performing Arts/UNC Chapel Hill, Brooklyn Academy of Music, FringeArts (Philadelphia), the Old Vic/London, The Yard (Chilmark, MA), Anonymous, Virginia and Timothy Millhiser, the Starry Night Fund, Helen and Peter Haje, and the Heimbinder Family Foundation.
Performances of 17c at BAM are supported by the Howard Gilman Foundation and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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