Neal Medlyn
Pop Star Series, The 2015 Emerald Edition
North American Premiere
ABRONS ARTS CENTER UNDERGROUND THEATER
466 Grand Street / tickets $20 / AbronsArtsCenter.org
Over the course of eight years, Neal Medlyn constructed a series of performance pieces built around the music, lives and personae of a series of pop stars: Lionel Richie, Phil Collins, Prince, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Insane Clown Posse and Michael Jackson. Using and often re-imagining and re-purposing their songs, combined with intuitively related outside sources like fairy tales, literature, and personal biography, Medlyn’s Pop Star Series creates a new world and mythology from the loud noises, contradictions and fevered intensity of pop culture. Seen only once in their entirety in Germany, this is a new, intimate version of all seven of the Pop Star Series shows.
The Lionel Richie Opera + Coming in the Air Tonight
THURS JAN 15, 7:00 PM
RUN TIME: 60 minutes
Single TicketsThe Lionel Richie Opera is built around a Lionel Richie greatest hits CD. The songs play in the order they appear on the CD to score a fairy tale about a love triangle between the queen of the land of unicorns, a violent and sullen prince and a musician, interwoven with personal biography and imagery from opera, Richie’s life, and introducing the language of the Pop Star Series.
Coming in the Air Tonight is built around Phil Collins, urban legends, blood and the color white, a fever dream of childhood friendships, matricide, show business, biography and religious iconography.
Unpronounceable Symbol
THURS JAN 15, 10:00 PM
RUN TIME: 60 minutes
Single TicketsUsing Prince songs and woven through with text from a variety of literary, musical, film and court sources, Unpronounceable Symbol consists of two characters within the same person fighting and having sex and descending into hell before being reborn as the Messiah.
…Her’s a Queen
FRI JAN 16, 7:00 PM
RUN TIME: 60 minutes
Single TicketsA story of redemption told in reverse and a struggle between knowing and the perceived purity of ignorance, …Her’s a Queen turns Britney Spears music and biography, especially centering on the “Blackout” album period of her career into a noise punk fairy tale going from a place of destruction and ending in a place of forgetful emptiness.
Brave New Girl
FRI JAN 16, 10:00 PM
RUN TIME: 60 minutes
Single TicketsThe conflict between and within characters in the Series reaches a kind of apex as the multiple personas and music of Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana, combined with imagery from the Dostoevsky novel “The Idiot,” as well as the imagery and identities of the characters in each of the Pop Star Series shows so far start to collapse in on themselves. Brave New Girl delves into teen bedroom culture, loneliness, heartbreak and personal biography.
Wicked Clown Love
SAT JAN 17, 7:00 PM
RUN TIME: 65 minutes
Single TicketsA descent into the wilderness using the lore and music and culture of Insane Clown Posse and the subculture of juggalos, combined with political, cultural and class ideas of masculinity, the Series travels into the darkness of horror rap, sprayed soda. Moby Dick and suicide.
King
SAT JAN 17, 10:00 PM
RUN TIME: 70 minutes
Single TicketsThe ending, the attempted ending, the reach for a definitive version of the vast mythology of The Series as well as a grappling with the music, art and impact of Michael Jackson, outmoded forms of show business, aging, loneliness. The final epic attempt to find some sort of meaning within the Pop Star Series, all seven of these attempts at a new mythology.
King, a project of Creative Capital, which premiered at The Kitchen in 2013, has been made possible in part by the Cutting Edge Fund of the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Photo by Ian Douglas.
Lighting design for entire series by Madeline Best
PART I & II
THE LIONEL RICHIE OPERA
&
COMING IN THE AIR TONIGHT
THE LIONEL RICHIE OPERA was created and written by Neal Medlyn. Songs by Lionel Richie and the Commodores.
COMING IN THE AIR TONIGHT was created and written by Neal Medlyn with additional text and original video design by Carmine Covelli, who co-starred in the original. Video design re-created by Neal Medlyn. Music by Phil Collins, Genesis, Philip Bailey and Teenage Jesus & the Jerks.
Starring: Neal Medlyn & Sophia Cleary
The Lionel Richie Opera premiered at a bar called the Apocalypse Lounge in 2005
Coming in the Air Tonight premiered at Galapagos Art Space in 2006
PART III
UNPRONOUNCEABLE SYMBOL
UNPRONOUNCEABLE SYMBOL was created and written by Neal Medlyn. Orchestrations and piano recordings by Matt Ray with additional music/recording by Neal Medlyn. Video design by Neal Medlyn. “Beautiful Ones” video by Carmine Covelli. The role of Bob George was originated by Carmine Covelli. Songs by Prince and Kate Bush.
Starring: Neal Medlyn, Sophia Cleary, the voice of Adrienne Truscott
Unpronounceable Symbol premiered at PS122 in 2007
PART IV
…HER’S A QUEEN
…HER’S A QUEEN was created and written by Neal Medlyn. Orchestrations, choreography, set and video design by Neal Medlyn. The role of PeainaPod was originated by Carmine Covelli. Songs by Britney Spears.
Starring: Neal Medlyn & Sophia Cleary
…Her’s a Queen premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in 2009
PART V
BRAVE NEW GIRL
BRAVE NEW GIRL was created and written by Neal Medlyn. Orchestrations, choreography by Neal Medlyn. The Hannah Montana merchandise collection on display is by Neal Medlyn. The role of Father Montana and the role of Farris (now named Sophia) were originated by Carmine Covelli and Farris Craddock. Songs by Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus and Nina Simone. Additional text by Robert Walser.
Starring: Neal Medlyn & Sophia Cleary
Brave New Girl premiered at the Chocolate Factory in 2010
PART VI
WICKED CLOWN LOVE
WICKED CLOWN LOVE was created and written by Neal Medlyn. Original costumes by Larry Krone. Original set by Kathleen Hanna. Orchestrations by Neal Medlyn. The roles of monsters were originated by Farris Craddock, Carmine Covelli, Michelle Dean, Casey Bartolucci, Bridie Coughlan, Shawn McLaughlin, Larry Krone and Ben Demarest. Songs by Insane Clown Posse, Dark Lotus, Townes van Zandt, Conway Twitty, Bonnie Raitt, Additional text by Robert Bly and Herman Melville.
Starring: Neal Medlyn & Sophia Cleary
Wicked Clown premiered at The Kitchen in 2012
PART VII
KING
KING was created and written by Neal Medlyn. Original costumes by Larry Krone. Orchestrations by Neal Medlyn. Video design by Matt Romein. A statue that accompanied the original was created by Fawn Kreiger, the photograph of the statue on display is courtesy of Paula Court. The role of Farris was originated by Farris Craddock. Music by Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Phil Collins, Prince, Britney Spears, Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus, Insane Clown Posse and Jackie Wilson. Additional text by Robert Barthelme, Maxim Gorky, Marilynne Robinson.
King is a project of Creative Capital.
King, which premiered at The Kitchen in 2013, has been made possible in part by the Cutting Edge Fund of the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Starring: Neal Medlyn & Sophia Cleary
Neal Medlyn is a performance artist and musician living in New York whose most well-known work is his seven show Pop Star Series and Champagne Jerry, the subsequent iteration of his work with popular music. The Pop Star Series works have been presented at venues such as The Kitchen, PS122, the Chocolate Factory and others as well as in various festivals and theaters around the U.S. and abroad such as American Realness, the TBA Festival, the Live Art Festival at Kampnagel in Hamburg, Germany and others. The Pop Star Series is currently being made into a book which will be published by 53rd State Press in 2015. Other work of his has been presented by the New Museum for Contemporary Art, the Andy Warhol Museum and he has received support from Creative Capital, NYFA and others. His work as Champagne Jerry has appeared at Joe’s Pub, BAM and on tour in various music venues, art galleries and Wal-Mart parking lots as well as online. His album “For Real, You Guys” debuted in 2014.
Sophia Cleary is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She is the founder and coordinator of the works-in-progress series REHEARSAL and is co-editor for Ugly Duckling Presse’s performance annual Emergency INDEX. She has had the pleasure of working with the Kate Bush Dance Troupe, Ann Liv Young, Dynasty Handbag (Jibz Cameron), Alexandra Bachzetsis, Kim Brandt, and NEAL MEDLYN!!! She has presented her work at the the Center for Performance Research, Danspace Project, Dixon Place, and e-flux. Her most recent project is playing drums in Penis, a feminist punk band co-founded with Samara Davis.
Madeline Best designs dances, lighting and video and is the production manager at The Chocolate Factory Theater. Best graduated from Bennington College, grew up in Durham NC and currently lives in Long Island City, Queens. She has designed lights for Neal Medlyn, Liz Santoro, Heather Kravas, Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith, Keely Garfield, Milka Djordjevick, Aki Sasamoto, Beth Gill, RoseAnne Spradlin, Luciana Achugar’s PURO DESEO (Bessie award winning), and more. Performance experience includes work on The Chocolate Factory Theater’s Resident Projects Selective Memory and HotBox with Brian Rogers; multiple projects with Lauren Petty/Shaun Irons and with Choreographer Juliana May/MayDance.
“Medlyn deals in theatrical miracles. He transforms the stuff of our celebrity- obsessed, media-staurated world into impossibly beautiful, absurdist happenings….He’s amazing.”
WNYC, All Things Considered
“Neal Medlyn is a comic-performance artist whose work—everything from sketches to monologues to dumping water on his head—is strange, sometimes arbitrary, usually funny, and always very public.”
The Onion
“There’s no denying it: Medlyn’s commitment makes him hilarious, especially when he’s tearing through a sexed-up song like “U Got the Look” or acting out Jerry’s unexpected trip to an afterlife filled with sex toys.”
By Mark Blankenship, Variety, Published July 13, 2008
“Aggressive and unsteady, it uses Ms. Spears’s slick-surfaced songs and desperate vulnerability as the vehicles for an existential meditation on the confused longings and spiritual emptiness lurking beneath so much of our dazzlingly vacuous public discourse.”
By Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times, Published October 26, 2009