2006

WHAT TO WEAR
Written, Directed and Designed by Richard Foreman

Music by Michael Gordon

September 19-October 1, 2006

Center for New Performance at CalArts, in conjunction with the New Century Players

The raucous, bitingly funny post-rock opera from avant-garde theater icon Richard Foreman and celebrated composer Michael Gordon marks the Los Angeles debut of the Center for New Performance. A pageant of seductiveness gone wron -- as everyone on stage turns less and less beautiful, something more ecstatic that beauty slowly reveals its awesome 21st-century face. Foreman’s brilliantly staged action is set to a powerful score by Gordon, a cofounder of the Bang on a Can Festival, who has been widely lauded for bringing the unruly vitality of popular forms to contemporary art music.

Developed at CalArts with generous support from the Audrey Skirball Kenis/REDCAT Music-Theater Program, funded by The Skirball Foundation.
Commissioned by the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, with funds provided by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, and by Meet The Composer Commissioning Music/USA.
Produced with the support of The Shubert Foundation.

REVIEWS:
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times (pdf)