works

A House of Skin and Bone (CURRENT) - Co-Directed by Sandie Luna and Montserrat Vargas

Inspired by the book The Dark Cave Between My Ribs by Loren Kleinman, A House of Skin and Bone is a physical theater piece inviting us to witness snapshots of a complex life including accounts of abuse, grief, suicide, love, and loss rendered poetic. A mother and daughter are subjected to their own preconceived ideas of love as they remain trapped inside their house with their painful relationship. Only doors and windows let in a drafty familial past muddied by personal addictions and abuse that snowball and pushes them to their limit.

 

Objective: A House of Skin and Bone attempts to decode the language of depression and addiction. Despite society’s growing recognition that depression and addiction are illnesses, both still carry a stigma that forces those who are suffering to hide in shame. Such suffering stifles the voice. It's something we don’t want to hear, we don’t want to see or even whisper. Yet, it plagues our society day and night; plagues our mothers, fathers, siblings, partners, friends, co-workers, heroes and leaders.

 

Presentation and Reading of  A House of Skin and Bone
This presentation’s goals are to raise funds and create awareness prior to the official  debut of A House of Skin and Bone at the end of National Poetry Month and the beginning of National Mental Health Awareness Month in 2017.  It is co-directed by Montserrat Vargas and Sandie Luna and produced by Nettles Artists Collective as part of Punto Space’s initiative #PuntoGivesBack which supports artistic organizations creating social change. Nettles’ mission is to imbue the American stage with authentic voices. This past March, their play Apple of My Eye was presented at the UNICEF. This is the first time that Kleinman’s writing has been transformed into theater, and she decided to choose Nettles Artists Collective because of their mission and expertise devising new works through the use of physicality.


Presentation Dates and Times:

Thursday, April 28, 7pm

Friday, April 29, 7pm

Saturday, April 30, 2pm


Running Time:
45 minutes approx. follow by a Q & A with respected experts.

Location: Punto Space, 325 West 38th Street, Storefront #3, New York, NY 10018.

Join our cast (Puy Navarro, Ibsen Santos, Jenna Sofia), co­-directors (Sandie Luna, Montserrat Vargas)
and Loren Kleinman on this special evening!

 

Seating is limited

Please reply by April 20 to ahouseofskinandbone@gmail.com.

Special thanks and recognition to the following artists that made this reading possible and are part of our crew:

Sugggested Donation $10 at the door


Music Director: James Theory

Projections and Animations Art by: Jaime Ekkens

Visuals: Montserrat Vargas

Assistant: Giovanna Arantes de Almeida

 

 

 Apple of My Eye (Menina dos Meus Olhos) 2013

An innovative physical theater piece that marks the first time ever a play written by an artist with down syndrome is professionally produced.  Tathiana Piancastelli, a 31 year old Brazilian woman wrote the story of Bella, a teenager in search of love and social acceptance. Along with a cast of 10 actors and under the direction of Debora Balardini, Tathiana explores the themes of romantic love, “normality” and community through the use of movement, text and video.

 

World Tour started July 17th in Miami! Next stop the UK, Holland and Switzerland!

 

THANK YOU to everyone who watered the seeds of inclusion and expression that we are cultivating at Nettles Artists Collective. You made the run and indiegogo campaign of Apple of My Eye an absolute success. We could not have done it without your support. Now, let’s keep the dialogue and practice of inclusion going and watch the theater scene blossom with more authentic voices!

The Dark Side of the Woods (2015)

MassBliss 2015 is an all ages arts and awareness camping experience that is filled with live performances and immersive workshops in music, theater, yoga, meditation, and fitness. Nettles Artist Collective brought the site specific original piece The Dark Side of the Woods, an exploration of fairy tales through movement, live music, and unforgettable characters.

Screame (2015)

A NYC coming-of-age odyssey full of nostalgia, melancholy and humor. The city’s new monologist relives the story of working at an Upper West Side gelato shop and questions the need to build a thicker skin in a world melting with vulnerability.The Show

“Screame” is a solo storytelling tour-de-force in which the narrator, Nate Speare, is the protagonist who plays multiple characters. Nate takes the audience on a coming-of-age odyssey in which personal dreams of artistic fulfillment come face-to-face with capitalistic reality, the limitations of a day job and the vulnerability, unspoken and below the surface, that is at the heart of every human. When he returns to a sales job at a gelato shop that he previously thought beneath his dignity, the protagonist of “Screame” is suddenly seized by an obsession with the store’s beauty, sadness and wildness, and his obsession transforms his definition of fulfillment into a reverence for the people in our everyday lives that we normally take for granted.

Four Legged Melancholy (2012)

An exploration of our melancholic selves – the part of us that lives with the echo of what has been lost. It goes to a place where melancholy is NOT all sadness, but rather a complex state of being, with a full range of emotions.

Inside. Not Looking Out. 2010

An exploration through movement and found text of the multifaceted human, focusing particularly on the presence of masculine and feminine intelligence in both man and woman. Performed at Pier 25 and Washington Square Park.

(Fringe NYC 2010)

DEFINITELY MAYBE (2007)

A short film following a young woman’s dark imaginary world born out of her inability to express her feelings to her live-in boyfriend. Her existence is split between the world of her imagination and the realities of domesticity and intimacy. Can she bring herself to say “I love you”? (Directed by Jason Wicks)

THE KING IN YELLOW (2006) - Written by Duke York

The King in Yellow is an exploration of the themes of death and meaning in our lives and the lives of the countless generations who have come before us. It follows two people, the Victim and the Scholar.  The Victim is a modern-day woman, proud, powerful and determined, but she runs afoul of her passions and something far darker and more sinister. The Scholar, on the other hand, is a Renaissance student at an Italian university, who has found a book that he believes holds the fundamental secrets of the cosmos, the secrets of the King in Yellow.

ADVICE FOR LIFE BY DR. NEUSS (2005) - Directed by Jason Wicks/Written by Claire Gailey

(24 Hour Movie Competition – Brooklyn NY – 2005)

Best Late Entry – Category created by the judges for this film!

Based on the word “advice”, assigned to us by the festival, we created an absurdist exploration of religion and death from the point of view of a dark and twisted Dr. Seuss.

THE KING IN YELLOW (2006) - Written by Duke York

Can a government revolutionize a society by imposing the mandatory learning and practice of Emotional Intelligence? President Eugene Taylor seems to think so, after he is “advised” by his right hand woman Anaconda Sanchez. Faced with the conflict, stemming from her own creation, Anaconda meets point blank with Barbara, the sole character who understands Emotional Intelligence while the nation soon finds out where they register on the E.I. barometer. But can the idea survive, and if so, at what price? Can everybody sing EI…EI..OH?

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