Dear NYC friends,

Well, I made my 4 day deadline with 15 minutes to spare.  I collaborated
with writer Rachel Sheinkin, I have a young enthusiastic trio with great
opera/music-theatre voices, lyric soprano Elizabeth Racster, tenor Scott
Sussman and baritone Jake Alrich, and it will be directed by Marie-Louise
Miller with musical direction by Douglas Maxwell.  All eight teams are
given the same generating rules; for RIMT #4, we were asked to create a
10-minute piece considering the question, "Does Love Transform?" and
using a location that includes the name of a President.

Rachel and I have created a wildly absurdist piece called "Hoover,"
which kind of takes place in a vacuum cleaner, or maybe it's a rehearsal
of a piece that takes place in a vacuum cleaner, or is it just debris
or...? It's very funny and we've been told it may be the best of the
evening (or maybe our Director tells all of the teams that...).  Well,
everyone was laughing at the first reading last Sunday of the fragments
we had completed.  Now it's done and the race to get the singers ready
by Monday is on!

The piece is a combination of anything I could get my hands on mixed
with wild experimentation that I've never done before.  There's a lot of
extended vocal technique, a cappella solos and trios (including doo wop),
meandering Satie vamps and, of course, eighteenth century Italian opera to
end it.  As the libretto says, "Whatever's in the Hoover." On the program
there's a pastiche comedy set in a Ford convertible (get it?) that features
the Enron chairman's wife, so I guarantee you at least two non-boring
non-operas if you come.  The official announcement is:

I'd like to invite you to Raw Impressions Music Theatre Event #4.  Come see
this extraordinary group of writers, composers, performers and directors
pull the extraordinary out of thin air and into existence.

             What RIMT is:
8 composers and 8 writers are randomly paired on a Friday evening.
They are given some guidelines on creating a new short music theatre piece.
They write it in under 48 hours.  The writers have 3 days for rewrites.  [2
because of Valentine's Day!] The performers have 4 days for rehearsal with
2 directors and 2 music directors.  They present the new pieces to the
public a week after the first reading.

        RIMT Mission Statement:
We are committed to artists being prolific with excellence.  We are also
committed to music theatre being an immediate community experience and a
reflection of what's going on around us right now - not filtered by anyone
and not hampered in a lengthy process before the audience receives it.
Finally, we're committed to bring together our artistic community through
creating an opportunity for artists to take risks and work with new
collaborators.

       La MaMa E.T.C. presents

    Raw Impressions Music Theatre
               Event #4

                WHERE:
  La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
             Club La MaMa
     (http://lamama.org/set.htm)
 74A East 4th Street - New York, NY 10003

                WHEN:
           One night only!
      Monday, February 18, 2002
           Shows @7PM & 9PM

      Box Office: (212) 475-7710
              COST: $15

   (You can buy a ticket over the phone.  You cannot reserve a ticket
   on the phone and pay for it later on the night of the show.  When
   you call you must purchase the ticket or you will have no reservation.
   There is a charge of $2 imposed by the credit card companies that
   will be added to your purchase price.  You can also purchase a ticket
   at the Box Office during office hours.  See the La MaMa website or
   call for hours.   We've SOLD OUT every show we've every done.  In
   the past we've had to turn away dozens of patrons who did not have
   tickets.  Buy your tickets now.)

              PERFORMERS
   Jake Alrich, Yvonne Anderson, Joe Cassidy, Culver Casson, Will Erat,
   Renee Hoffman, Mark Montague, Liz Racster, Christine Reimer, Scott
   Sussman

              COMPOSERS
   Barbara Benary, Robert Bledsoe, Andy Cohen, Barry Drogin, Peter Foley,
   Gene Pritsker, Andrew Recinos, Myrna Schloss

               WRITERS
   Daniel Frederick Levin, Michael Maiello, Alejandro Morales, Steve
   Moramarco, Rachel Sheinken, Lucy Thurber, Thaddeus Strassberger, Ed
   Weissman

           MUSIC DIRECTORS
             Aron Accurso
           Douglas Maxwell

           STAGE DIRECTORS
              Ari Kreith
         Marie-Louise Miller

         PRODUCTION CAPTAINS
           David Lefkowich
            Patrick Mellen
             David Rodwin

            RIMT FOUNDERS
            Patrick Mellen
             David Rodwin

   Mark your calenders today. RIMT #5 on Monday March 25, 2002 at LaMaMa.

   and

   Raw Impressions Collaborative (Straight) Theatre in April at Manhattan
   Theatre Source.

   and

   Raw Impressions Productions (Short Film) Festival (RIP Fest).  8
   short films created "soup to nuts" in 2-1/2 weeks.  Premiere screening
   in May.

for more information about future Raw Impressions, Inc. events go to
http://www.jadelake.com/rimt.html

See you there,

Barry Drogin