June 11-29, 2024
Tuesdays - Saturdays at 7pm (final Sat. 6/29 at 2pm)
At the Connelly Theater: 220 East 4th Street, NYC
Tickets go on sale May 14
Book, Music & Lyrics by Michelle J. “Micha” Rodriguez
Directed by Mei Ann Teo
Produced in association with ¡Oye! Group and The Sol Project
With support from Musical Theatre Factory
PRESENCIA is a tender and comedic millennial music theater piece that reshapes the Moses story for women of color grappling with the hazards and challenges of leadership, told with Bible-fan-fiction vibes, varying degrees of reverence and satire, and a vibrant anthemic musical score rooted in jazz/R&B. When a succulent plant bursts into flames and tells fitness instructor Presencia it's the god of her ancestors, she must decide what to do… Sometimes liberation must be practiced at the smallest scale. Expect miracles, magic, divine feminine energy, and the healing power of presence and intuition in this ultimately joyous new piece of music theater.
Poster Design by Kelley Galbreath
SAVE THE DATE:
Lincoln Center Presents
In collaboration with The Bushwick Starr, HERE Arts Center, and Ma-Yi Theatre Company
Summer for the City
India Week
RHEOLOGY: In Concert
Sunday, July 14, 2024 at 5pm
Hearst Plaza
FREE! General Admission, first-come first-served. Just show up!
Obie Award-winning writer/director Shayok Misha Chowdhury's recent play, Public Obscenities, was singled out as one of the best theater works of 2023 by The New Yorker. His newest work is a performance memoir created with his mother, the physicist Bulbul Chakraborty. Chakraborty's specialty is the titular science of rheology, the laws governing the malleability and movement of matter under force. Another of her loves is the poetic songs of Bengali composer Rabindranath Tagore. These songs paint glorious pictures about the drama of nature: monsoons produce drum-like thunder claps, rivers let loose their long hair into waterfalls, music flows through generations. Chakraborty learned these songs from her foremothers, then passed them on to Misha. In this concert production of reimagined Tagore compositions, an artist son studies his physicist mother while she studies the strange behavior of sand. Together, they try to understand the science and the story of how things flow.
FEATURED MUSICIANS
George Crotty
Sruti Sarathy
Birsa Chatterjee
John Murchison
Run time: approximately 1 hour 15 minutes
RECENT NEWS:
DARK DISABLED STORIES WINS THREE 2023 OBIE AWARDS!
The Bushwick Starr breaks ground on its new permanent home in Bushwick!
We did it! Our Groundbreaking ceremony marked a major moment as we finally begin construction on the Starr’s new home! We were thrilled to see so many friends and supporters come out to celebrate, and so moved by the words of our speakers. Taking a moment to step away from the grind of this project and realize how far we’ve come, how grateful we are for our incredible community partnerships, and how sweet the future will be… was truly beautiful. Thank you all for your love and support.
Read more about the event and see photos HERE
