Public Republic

We’re almost there!

Photo: R. Chichev

On Monday our playwright Ivan Dimitrov flies from Bulgaria to NYC–

On Tuesday we start rehearsals with our amazing cast–

And on indiegogo we’ve raised well over $4000 for this fantastic Bulgarian theatre adventure, with one final weekend to go!

For those of you who have been thinking, “Wow, that project does sound cool, I could chip in $25…” (or $5, or $125, you get the picture…) this is your moment!

An amazing diversity of folks have pledged already, and with three days left we’re about three-quarters of the way there. An enormous thank-you to all of you who have already contributed.

If you haven’t had a chance to make a contribution, please visit our indiegogo page, and give at whatever level makes sense to you. Link

I truly believe that to create profound, creative cross-cultural links– between writers, actors, and audiences– is one of the best things theatre can do. I couldn’t be more excited about the process we’re about to embark upon. Thanks in advance for being a part of this work.

Love,
Sam B

It’s another lunch hour in the main square, and two white-collar wannabe sharks are heading back to the office hustle. They have some concerns, though: Who’s watch is more prestigious? Is it possible to eat from a street vendor without looking like a hick?

(Is that why they never manage to actually eat lunch?) And where did all the people go? Also: who is that man who watches them every day, and why does it feel so damn reassuring? Old-school Absurdism meets “The Office,” in a play about anonymity, surveillance, and global consumer culture.

The Eyes of Others won the Shumen new play contest in Bulgaria, and in NYC was selected from among hundreds of international plays to be read at the Lark Play Development Center’s 2012 hotINK Festival. In September it becomes the first Bulgarian play to receive a major New York production.

Thanks to a generous Trust for Mutual Understanding grant awarded by CEC/ArtsLink, both playwright Ivan Dimitrov and translator Angela Rodel will travel to New York for the rehearsal process, to develop the play and refine its translation.

The show is produced by Bug Company, an organization devoted to exploring translation in performance as both a practice and an idea. The New York Times said of Bug Company’s “gleeful” first production Hater that it “wields a rapier… [and] nicely twists the blade.”

The Eyes of Others will be presented by the two-time Obie Award-winning New Ohio Theatre, which has a twenty-plus-year history producing and presenting the most exciting, sophisticated, irreverent and boundary-busting downtown theatre.