Direct Arts and Horse Trade Theater Group are thrilled to announce a new season of Take Two, the popular monthly double bill that pairs theater and film, past and present, across cultures. Taking place the second Tuesday every month from January to June, the 2012 program will include plays by Ping Chong, Heather Raffo, and Culture Clash, as well as two Academy Award-winning short films and the first ever Take Two Challenge.
For its fourth season, Take Two leaves all those black boxes behind and finds its first home in the Red Room at 85 East 4th Street. Uniting disparate cultures, theater and film, as well as arts and activism, each double bill begins at 7:00PM with a social half hour, followed by a short film and a staged reading of a full-length play that examines a similar sociopolitical topic. The event often concludes with a rousing discussion led by a writer, journalist or scholar. Since 2007, Take Two has presented over 35 plays and films featuring the cream of NYC's multi-ethnic theater and film community – Obie Award winners, cable TV stars, Broadway actors, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festival picks – plus an exciting group of thinkers, activists and artists.
Take Two 2012 will also include the first Take Two Challenge, which opens the program to new writers and filmmakers. This year, the February Take Two falls on Valentine’s Day. Program Director Victoria Linchong has taken this opportunity to call for submissions of short films and plays on the theme “Love Across Borders.” Panelists include directors Craig Baldwin (Associate Artistic Director of Red Bull Theatre), Nancy Robillard (Rosemary & I with Olympia Dukakis at Metro Stage), award-winning independent film producerMike S. Ryan (Meek’s Cutoff, Choke); Karin Shook Caparoso (co-founder of Chicago Director’s Lab): and Obie Award winning actress Ching Valdes Aran. Winners receive $100 and a staging or screening of their work on February 14, 2012 as part of Take Two. Deadline is December 21, 2011 and winners will be announced January 12, 2012.
Past shows
June 12, 2012
(June 2012)
SHARE THE WEALTH written by Jayson Oaks and directed by Bennie Klain
CHAVEZ RAVINE by Culture Clash, directed by Andy Pang
Take Two takes on land rights issues and the war on the poor, with Bennie Klein’s haunting short film Share the Wealth, about a Native American woman’s attempt to pay a new “homeless tax” followed by Culture Clash’s Chavez Ravine, a vivid homage to the titular Chicano neighborhood in Los Angeles that was razed in the 1950s to make way for Dodger Stadium.
May 8, 2012
(May 2012)
L TO CANARSIE written and directed by Alice Cox
NECTAR by Katie Baldwin Eng, directed by Karin Shook
“And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier,” wrote Walt Whitman in Song of Myself. In this month’s Take Two, death intersects with life in a vastly unexpected way. Alice Cox’s short film L to Canarsie depicts the coming-of-age of a young woman whose boyfriend suddenly dies after they move to New York City. Alone in the gentrifying neighborhood of Bushwick, she discovers a new sense of herself. In Katie Baldwin Eng’s magical whimsical play Nectar, a motley group of former lovers gather at the hospital where the extraordinary writer and artist Maximillian Bird is dying. Reflecting on their feelings for him, they are each magically transformed and even reborn.
April 10, 2012
(April 2012)
FATAKRA written and directed by Soham Mehta
SINCE AFRICA by Mia McCullough
Immigrants and refugees make the difficult adjustment to life in America in this month’s Take Two. The poignant Student Academy Award-winning film Fatakra concerns an Indian man who is finally able to send for his wife and son after three years in America, but instead of a happy reunion, his family is shocked and disappointed with the reality of immigrant life. Mia McCullough’s powerful drama Since Africa depicts a Sudanese refugee’s attempts to adjust to his new life in Chicago, with the help of a wealthy socialite and an African-American pastor, whose opposing ideas on how best to help him may not really help him at all.
March 13, 2012
(March 2012)
UMOJA: NO MEN ALLOWED written and directed by Elizabeth Tadic
9 PARTS OF DESIRE by Heather Raffo, directed by Nancy Robillard
Feminism meets multiculturalism during Women’s History Month. Umoja: No Men Allowed is a rowdy documentary on Sembaru women in Northern Kenya who turn age-old patriarchy on its head by setting up a women-only village. Following the film, Heather Raffo poetically weaves together a series of monologues in 9 Parts of Desire, bring to life nine Iraqi women whose vastly different experiences express the complex reality of being female in war-torn Iraq. Originally a one-woman play written and performed by Raffo, who won a Lucille Lortel Award for this remarkable work, Direct Arts will present the play performed by nine women.
February 14, 2012
(February 2012)
The Take Two Challenge – “Love Across Borders”
Direct Arts challenges filmmakers and writers to submit short films and full-length plays on the theme “Love Across Borders” for a special Valentine’s Day Take Two. The winning filmmaker and playwright will be present for a discussion following a screening of the short film and a staged reading of the winning play directed by Craig Baldwin (Associate Artistic Director, Red Bull Theatre).
January 10, 2012
(January 2012)
INJA written and directed by Steve Pasvolsky
DESHIMA by Ping Chong, directed by Victoria Linchong
Direct Arts begins the Take Two season with a yin-yang double bill on the legacy of colonialism. Set during and after Apartheid in South Africa, the powerful 2003 Academy Award-winning short film Inja explores the devastating consequences of colonial domination in the life of a black South African boy and a white landowner. Spanning four centuries, Obie Award-winner Ping Chong’s Deshima is a poetic documentary theater piece in which Japan turns the tables on its would-be European colonizers.