Bamboozled or the Real Reality Show August 6, 2011

Theater for the New City's 35th Street Theater tour will be
"Bamboozled, or The Real Reality Show."
2011 summer production will tour streets, parks and playgrounds
August 6 to September 18.
WHERE AND WHEN:
August 6 to September 18
In NYC streets, parks, and playgrounds throughout the five boroughs.
(See complete schedule at bottom of this document).
Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00 pm plus Friday, August 19 at 8:00 pm
Presented by Theater for the New City (www.theaterforthenewcity.net).
Free to the public. Audience info (212) 254-1109.
Theater for the New City's award-winning Street Theater Company opens its 35th annual tour August 6 with "Bamboozled, or The Real Reality Show," a rip-roaring musical which will tour City streets, parks and playgrounds throughout the five boroughs through September 18. The production, free to all New Yorkers, will have book, lyrics and direction by Crystal Field (it's in-progress as of this writing) and musical score composed by Joseph Vernon Banks. (Schedule follows at bottom of this document.)

TNC's award-winning Street Theater always contains an elaborate assemblage of trap doors, giant puppets, smoke machines, masks, original choreography and a huge (9' x 12') running screen or "cranky" providing continuous movement behind the actors. The company of 32 actors, 15 crew members, two assistant directors and four live musicians shares the challenge of performing outside and holding a large, non-captive audience. The music varies in style from Bossa Nova to Gilbert & Sullivan. Complex social issues are often presented through children's allegories, with children as the heroes, making these free productions a popular form of family entertainment.

The hero of the play is a lowly but reliable Postman, whose route runs through Jackson Heights. He has always been very happy with his job, delivering the happiness of birthday cards, news of newborns and the romance of marriage invitations. But this year, there is a terrible change--he is carrying a tsunami of unhappiness with pink slips, layoffs, businesses closings, Medicare terminations, closings of hospitals, firehouses and libraries; teacher terminations and condolences sent to the Japanese. The TV haunts his dreams and corrupts his reality, with its bizarre reality shows and its news of wars in which we're not really there, but somehow we're bombing them to pieces.

He experiences a visitation from Diablo Hysterico, the Rock 'n' Roll King of the Underworld, who reveals to him our Faustian contract with Nuclear Power. Diablo declares, "You are America! Lord and Master of the World!" Our hero resists the responsibility until he is visited by a fugitive from the future, who screams out what he has seen and pleads not to be sent back. But Diablo sings him away, and the Postman flies with him to see a people-less planet--a silent world, with nothing but grasses and overhanging trees, and little animals scurrying here and there, and the only vestige of Human Civilization…a few Pokemon characters left over from a digital remix.

The operetta shows how a strong young man, slipping quickly towards middle age, can see through the maelstrom of bad news towards a clear vision of a cleaner, more harmonious planet. Our hero fools the Devil and reminds us that a really good postman will ring three times if he has to, and even knock the door down if smoke is billowing from inside the house, and a person is screaming for help, as our planet is now.

S C H E D U L E
Sat, August 6th - 2PM - Manhattan - TNC, East 10th Street at 1st Avenue
Sun, August 7th  - 2PM – Bronx - St. Mary's Park at 147th St. & St. Ann's Ave
Sat, August 13th  - 2PM - Manhattan – Jackie Robinson Park, W. 147th Street & Bradhurst Avenue
Sun, August 14th  - 2PM - Brooklyn - Herbert Von King Park at Marcy & Tompkins
Fri, August 19th -  8PM - Brooklyn - Coney Island Boardwalk at W. 10th St.
Sat, August 20th  - 2PM – Manhattan - Wise Towers at W. 90th St bet. - Columbus & Amsterdam
Sun, August 21st  - 2PM – Manhattan – Central Park Bandshell, 72nd Street Crosswalk
Sat, August 27th  - 2PM - Brooklyn – Sunset Park, 6th Avenue & 44th Street
Sun, August 28th  - 2PM - Queens – Travers Park, 34th Ave between 77th & 78th Streets
Sat, September 10th  - 2PM – Manhattan - Tompkins Square Park at E. 7th St and Ave. A
Sun, September 11th - 2PM – Manhattan - Washington Square Park
Sat, September 17th  - 2PM - Staten Island – Stapleton Playground, Broad Street & Tompkins Ave.
Sun, September 18th  - 2PM - Manhattan - St. Marks Church, E. 10th St at 2nd Ave

Official Website: http://www.theaterforthenewcity.com