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