Theatergoers can soon get an up-close-and-personal brush with a legendary pop art provocateur.
Bated Breath Theatre Company, which recently produced the award-winning “Voyeur: The Windows of Toulouse-Lautrec,” will launch its newest immersive and theatrical walking tour production, “Chasing Andy Warhol.”
The show will use the East Village as a backdrop as it explores the life and legacy of one of the 20th century’s most famous artists, a man who explored the impact of celebrity and mass media with works like Campbell’s Soup Cans and his silkscreen diptych of Marilyn Monroe. It’s a pretty pandemic-friendly slice of theater, one that takes audiences from Astor Place to the Bowery before ending at Von Bar. Throughout scenes inspired from Warhol’s enigmatic life will unfold on the streets, behind windows of area businesses, and inside secret locations along the route. It sounds like a slightly easier suspension of disbelief than “Voyuer,” which transformed the West Village into 19th century Paris — Warhol, after all, spend much of his career in Manhattan.
“There is not a piece of culture that hasn’t been touched by Warhol’s resilience and his ability to sense what the times needed,” says creator and director Mara Lieberman. “It’s exciting to move forward with this kind of live theater and to try it with New York really acting as our scene partner.”
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The show will begin previews commencing on March 25, with an official opening set for April 7. The show runs roughly 90 minutes, and audiences will be kept to 16 people. The company will perform shows from Thursday to Sunday.
“We are a rain or shine experience,” says Lieberman.
Bated Breath will produce the show in partnership with Fever/Secret NYC, the Greenwich Village Business Alliance, the NoHo Business Improvement District, TMPL Clubs at Astor Place, and Von Bar.
The complete cast includes Mitchell Ashe, Kat Berton, Grayson Bradshaw, Mariah Busk, Alysa Finnegan, Teal French-Levine, Jmonet Hill, Youran Lee, Jake Malavsky, Taylor McKenzie, Marisa Melito, Kayla Prestel, Brandon P. Raines, Annika Rudolph, Alessandra Ruiz, Antonia Santangelo, Kyle Starling, Fé Torres, Luca Villa and Katherine Winter.
Lieberman created and directed the show, which incorporates choreography by Rachel Leigh Dolan and Rachelle Rak, costume design by Christopher F. Metzger, set design by Christian Fleming, Meg McGuigan, Jerry Schiffer, sound and projection design by Mark Van Hare and Experiential Design Consultant is Tara O’Con.
