Written by Kirk Lynn
Co-Created & Directed by Melanie Joseph
Would you rather be smarter or taller?
What's the most generous thing you've ever done?
If I looked at your schedule this week, would I be able determine your values with any accuracy?
What was the first thing you wanted as a child that you bought with your own money?
How many years do you think is a 'long enough life' to live?
How do you know you deserve what you've worked for?
If you could have one extra hour today what would you do with it?
What do you think might be the next thing you lie about?
The Foundry Theatre presents
Nov 3 – 27th
"The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world..."
– James Baldwin
The Foundry Theatre presents
HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH
Our Values in Question
written by Kirk Lynn
co-created with & directed by Melanie Joseph
cast: Noel Joseph Allain* • Mia Katigbak* • Carl Hancock Rux *
“The Googler” | MOHAMMAD YOUSUF • assistant director | SHERRINE AZAB
production stage manager | SARAH ELIZABETH FORD* • lights & projection designer | JEANETTE YEW
sound designer | KRISTYN R. SMITH • dramaturg | MORGAN JENNESS • producer | Evan O'Brient
production manager | ANA MARI DE QUESADA • assistant lighting designer | TRACY WERTHEIMER
If you could have one extra hour today what would you do with it? What do you think might be the next thing you lie about? How much money do you think you will spend over the course of your entire life? How much change – just change – do you think is in the pockets and bags of the people in this room?
How Much is Enough is a play that asks what we value, quantitatively in our relation to money and qualitatively by what we hold dear. ˜Ask' is the operative word since the piece itself is built entirely of questions posed by three performers to audience members, to each other, to the universe and then some, about how we live our lives, how we create the world together and how we imagine the future.
Equal parts town hall meeting, party, guide for the perplexed and then some, How Much is Enough gathers its greatest theatricality from our eternal human desire – individual and communal to create lives of value.
*Member of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
St. Ann's Warehouse
38 Water Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
For Directions Click HERE
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Tickets
HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH asks the audience to think about value – and the questions begins now.
We're offering 3 general admission prices.
$15 • $30 • $60
And we ask YOU to pick the one you think is fair given your interest and economic ability.
The performance runs approximately 90 minutes with no intermission
Purchase at
the Box Office
St. Ann's Warehouse
38 Water Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
718-254-8779
Monday Friday 12p 6p
NY press coming... 2nd week of November
Check out some of lectures, books and poetry that informed HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH
CAPITAL by Karl Marx (online lectures of David Harvey)
WORLDLY PHILOSOPHERS by Robert L. Heilbronner
UTOPISTICS by Immanuel Wallerstein
FREEDOM DREAMS by Robin D. G. Kelley (esp pp 1-13)
A BOOK OF QUESTIONS by Pablo Neruda
THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING by Eduardo Porter
THE VALUE OF NOTHING by Raj Patel
TO BE OF USE by Marge Piercy
HOW THIS PIECE CAME TO BE
A Little Context… Foundry productions are made from scratch — borne out of commissions made to artists with whom we work over long periods of development through to production. With each commission, we challenge ourselves to explore the (im)possibilities of theatre and we believe our body of work constitutes a passionate argument for its limitless imaginative potential. How Much Is Enough is our latest theatrical adventure.
First
Jan 2009: Foundry Artistic Producer Melanie Joseph approached playwright Kirk Lynn to ask if he'd like to make a new theatre piece exploring the notion of “value”. She was interested in exploring how what we "value" is connected to the ways we live our lives and by extension, how we manifest the larger world. Kirk was at that time experimenting with writing a play out of questions that would gather people in some form of communal theatrical prayer. And so the project was born.
Next
They began by researching various meanings of “value” (see list above) and set about to compose questions arranged thematically — the value of women, money, possessions, ecology, healthcare, etc. They tested the questions and peoples' willingness to answer them by meeting with various groups throughout NYC and Austin, TX (where Kirk lives) They met with investment bankers, freegans, gamers, ESL classes and youth groups, to name a few, and were inspired by the depth of engagement of all the participants. Kirk then took the questions and began to translate it into a play for actors and a larger audience. We've have held 5 workshops of various drafts — always with audiences. We can neither work on nor rehearse this play without an audience and we have hundreds of people to thank for their time and contributions to this process!
Then
August 2011: we took our play to ArtsEmerson in Boston for an old-fashioned “out-of-town” tryout. Our collaboration team grew to include dramaturg, Morgan Jenness, lights & projection designer, Jeanette Yew, 3 indomitable actors and our live “googler”. We rehearsed, built and performed a fully staged show with audiences over 6 weeks, making new discoveries and continuing to refine the piece in preparation to bring its next incarnation home to NYC.
Now
November 2011: Here we are at St. Ann's Warehouse. In many ways the creation of HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH has been about the challenge to ask ourselves — to best articulate — the hard questions of our lives and the world that we create together by living them. We hope people leave the theatre with some of that struggle enlivened in them. And as Kirk says, “When the play works, you get to peek into the lives of the most interesting people in the theatre, the people who usually sit in the dark.”
What if there were public squares in every neighborhood?
What if land and water weren't owned by anyone, if they were held in common?
What if it was customary to invite a stranger to supper twice a week?
What if there were maximum differentials between the highest paid and lowest paid employee of a company?
What if we voted on how taxes will be spent?
What if doctors were paid the same as teachers?
What if we didn't use prisons or police forces to ensure our safety?
What if no one inherited wealth of any kind?
What if leadership were horizontal instead of a pyramid?
What if citizenship weren't organized by country?
What if our government were a participatory not a representative democracy?
What if the future was already happening?
If...is.
There are people and communities all across the world & in our own neighborhoods who are engaged in alternative practices right now -- in the workplace, in education, in healthcare, in public safety initiatives, in economic systems, and more... Below is one example. Check back here every week as we bring you more profiles of those who are beating the paths to what if.
p.s.
Stay tuned for our upcoming Foundry Roundtable series: THIS IS HOW WE DO IT, A Rebellious Show & Tell
We'll be bringing several of these pathfinders to NYC to find out – first hand – how they're doing what they do...
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