Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Next up on Kitchen Theatre Company's 2016-2017 26th Season is Death Boogie by Darian Dauchan, a hip hop musical that combines physical theater, music, video, and poetry in a stunning projected environment! Violinist Mathew "MattViolinist" Silvera and double bassist Desmond Bratton provide live accompaniment for this one-of-a-kind theatrical musical event. Performances are November 15 to December 4.

"This is a performance like no other we have produced at Kitchen Theatre Company," says Artistic Director Rachel Lampert. "And it features the incredible talents of one of my favorite writer/performers. As artistic director, I am drawn to all the artists we work with, but there are several whom I have particularly championed over my tenure. Darian Dauchan is one, and I wanted his work to be a part of my final season as artistic director."

Death Boogie was the winner of Best New Music and Best Innovation in Musical Theatre at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has toured to festivals all over the NYC area as well as the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh, Chicago's Auditorium Theatre, and to Trondheim and Oslo, Norway where it headlined SPKRBOX - the first ever Hip Hop Theater Festival in Norway. It is a multi-media, hip hop poetry musical that follows the fictional story of Victor Spartan, a blue collar worker who lives a nearly comatose lifestyle by day and at night hears the poetic sounds of revolution. Death Boogie is a high energy, whimsical examination of the notion of martyrdom, altruism, and courage.

Darian Dauchan* has been seen at Kitchen Theatre Company as writer/performer of Entertainer's Eulogy, Media Madness, Obamatry, and Black Sheep (commissioned by Kitchen Theatre Company) and as an actor in The Brothers Size and The Whipping Man. He is an award winning actor, writer, and musician who has appeared on Broadway (Twentieth Century starring Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche) and Off Broadway theatre (Jean Cocteau Rep., Classical Theatre of Harlem). TV credits include Law and Order, Nickelodeon's Bet the House as Darian the "SoundFX" Guy, and the Lionsgate feature film Things Never Said. Darian has also embraced the art of Spoken Word/Performance Poetry and within his first three months had won slams at all three major poetry venues in New York City.

He is the founder of The Spoken Word Almanac Project, a poetry collective committed to writing poems on current world events. He conceived the spoken word trilogy shows Slam 101, 102, and 103 for Lincoln Center's Meet the Artist Series, which he co-wrote with poets Shanelle Gabriel and Erik Maldonado, and has toured around the Tri- state area with the support of Young Audiences New York. He's currently the Artist in Residence with the All for One Theater Company, developing the Sci Fi Hip Hop transmedia piece Brobot Johnson. Darian is also a beatboxer: he took 2nd place in the Loop Station Battle at the American Beatbox Championships held in November 2016.

Directing Death Boogie is Jennifer McGrath, a director, choreographer, stage manager, teacher, and event planner and producer. She is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts who currently serves as the Stage Manager for American Ballet Theatre while continuing to pursue her passion of directing for the stage. Recent directing credits include Sipiwe Moyo's "My Friend Nina" at Dixon Place, the world premiere reading of Aissa Martell's "The History of Pigtails" in the 2015 Poetic License Theater Festival, and Darian Dauchan's "Voicepower!," "Obamatry," and "Death Boogie." "Voicepower!" toured to under privileged schools in all five NYC boroughs. Other favorite directing credits include "Citizen Girl," "The Burning Cities Project," and a tristate area arts education outreach tour of the South African play "Woza Albert!" In addition to recent work at the United Nations as a Stage Manager for the Hungarian Mission, Pakistan's Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, and the Pope's Historic Address of the General Assembly, McGrath has worked for Lincoln Center Theater and Blue Man Group. She spent six years touring the world stage managing with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and has worked with Playwrights Horizons Theater School, La Guardia High School, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Present Company, The TEAM, and Real Theaterworks, among others.

Darian will be joined onstage by two musicians: bassist Desmond Bratton and violinist Matthew Silvera aka MattViolinist.

Desmond Bratton holds a Masters of Music from Ithaca College, where he studied Double Bass Performance with Nicholas Walker. Desmond studied with Paul Ellison of the Houston Grand Opera, David Allen Moore of the L.A. Philharmonic, and Scott Dixon of the Cleveland Orchestra. He is a guest lecturer at Cornell University and teaches at Ithaca's local music school Opus Ithaca. Desmond spends the summer season teaching and performing in Miami, Florida, where he's been invited as a guest performer and teacher with the Greater Miami Youth Symphony, and the Miami Youth Chamber Music, with members of the University of Miami Music Faculty, San Francisco Opera, and the New World Symphony. When he is not teaching, Desmond is actively performing and recording within the local music scene in the genres of Jazz, Classical, and Folk music.

Mathew "MattViolinist" Silvera is a Bronx, NY native. He studied music education at William Paterson University where he played in the Orchestra. Mathew received accolades after achieving 3 time "First Place" winner at the Famous NY Apollo Theater and Halftime at Madison Square Garden for the New York Knicks. He performed as a featured artist in the National and Russian tour, "The Hip Hop Nutcracker" 2015-2016. He has graced the stage of several College Universities as a special guest Artist and landed a National commercial as a principal, playing violin for Mastercard.

Lighting design is by Sarah Frank, Music by The Mighty Third Rail, Media Design by Room 404 Media, Comic Book Illustrations by David Ayllon. The production stage manager is Jennifer Schilansky*.

Kitchen Theatre Company is offering a number of ancillary events in conjunction with this production. On Friday, November 18 and Friday, December 2nd, there will be a talkback with the cast, moderated by Lee Rayburn of WHCU. Friday, December 2nd is Under-40 Night, which includes a free wine tasting before the show and a performance after the show by Bravo Blane.

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