Hungry for something different?
501 (see three) ARTS and 24th STreet Theatre are thrilled to present the West Coast premiere of Pang! on Saturday, December 2 at 8:00pm and Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 3:00pm. Pang! – by Dan Froot and Company – is a triptych of adventurous live radio plays based on the oral histories of three American families hungering for change. The 90-minute production is being performed for theatre audiences in the three cities where the actual families live: Cedar Rapids, Iowa (10/20 & 10/21), Los Angeles, California at 24th STreet Theatre (12/2 & 12/3), and Miami, Florida (1/26 & 1/27/18). Pang! aims to raise awareness, decrease stigma, and promote cross-class dialogue around circumstances faced by families living below the poverty line. For more information on Pang!, please visit Tinyurl.com/pang-info.
Pang! Synopsis –
Pang! is an evening of three highly original theatre pieces about real American families facing poverty’s innumerable challenges – from hunger to gun violence to foreclosure to immigrant life – with love, humor and resilience. Staged as if recording a live radio broadcast or podcast, three actors at microphones voice dozens of characters, from 18-months to 77-years old, from a Burundian refugee speaking in his home language, to a 7-year-old Miami boy whose dialogue is spoken in unison by the entire ensemble. Pang! is a symphony of animated dialogue, musical accompaniment and live Foley sound effects, including doors slamming, dishes scraping, doorbells ringing, shovels digging, and rivers raging.
The plays are produced, written and directed by Dan Froot, in collaboration with the ensemble, with music by Robert Een, sound design by Cricket Myers, lighting design by Christopher Kuhl and are performed by actors Natalie Camunas, Donna Simone Johnson, Christopher Rivas, and Froot and Een. Pang!’s lighting director/production manager is Katelan Braymer, the sound engineer is Gary Markowitz, and the dramaturge is Bobby Gordon.
Los Angeles Tickets –
There will be two Pang! performances in Los Angeles at 24th STreet Theatre (1117 West 24th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007): opening night is on Saturday, December 2 at 8:00pm and a matinee on Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 3:00pm follows. Ticket are $24 for adults; $15 for students, seniors and teachers; $10 for teens under 18; and $2.40 for University Park residents (with ID). For tickets, please visit http://bit.ly/PangTickets or call 213-745-6516.
A Glimpse Behind the Scenes of Pang! –
Pang! is a response to our increasing socioeconomic disparity. Over the course of eight months in 2015-2016, Dan Froot and Company created six book-length oral histories of families living with food insecurity in Cedar Rapids, Los Angeles and Miami. They then collaborated with one of the families from each city to devise each of the 30-minute stories that comprise Pang!. The families consult with the Company continuously throughout the adaptation, rehearsal and performance processes. The families include:
From Cedar Rapids:
A family who makes a harrowing escape from war-torn Burundi and resettles as refugees in Eastern Iowa. The play is a fictionalized account of the making of a documentary podcast about the family’s story by a do-gooder producer. As he tries to bend the family’s narrative to serve his mission, cultural misunderstandings ensue. The family is, in the end, able to communicate a more nuanced understanding of immigrant life than the producer has ever imagined.
From Los Angeles:
We are introduced to Beatrice, her nine spirited children and her cantankerous elderly uncle, Gregorio, as she takes us on a tour of the beautiful two-story house her grandmother purchased 65 years prior. We witness heartwarming vignettes from the family’s history: uproarious backyard barbecues, chaotic school mornings, teenage sisters fighting over the house’s only phone. We learn that the uncle has been trying desperately to modify the home’s second mortgage. Enter Rex Salonga, a convivial mortgage adjuster. Through a tragicomic kaleidoscope of phone messages and home visits, Rex befriends Gregorio and convinces him to allow Rex to “help” him modify his loan. Spoiler alert: the foreclosure crisis is not over.
From Miami:
A seven-year-old boy sews seeds of hope by fantasizing his family's way out of a Miami neighborhood besieged by violence and beset by racism. The play is written from the child’s point of view, as audiences are taken on a wild ride that merges super-hero fantasies with car crashes, the tooth fairy, and the loss of a dear family friend.
Even though the plays deal with sobering realities, they are rich with the humor, warmth and resilience of the families themselves.
