Ruth Margraff

New York, NY 10036

Website: www.RuthMargraff.com

 

• STADIUM DEVILDARE
• THE ELEKTRA FUGUES
• THE CRY PITCH CARROLLS
• WELLSPRING
• RED FROGS: A Burlesque Mirror For The Summer Purgatorio
• JUDGES 19: BLACK LUNG EXHALING
• NIGHT VISION: A THIRD TO FIRST WORLD VAMPYRE OPERA
• THE CRY PITCH CAROLLS
• WALLPAPER PSALM
• THE ELEKTRA FUGUES
• ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINESE AMERICA…
• CENTAUR BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO
• LOCKET ARIAS
• EXOTICA ORANGE
• ALL THOSE VIOLENT SWEATERS
• VINYL PRESSINGS: Huipil for Hijos, Bicycle Built for Two, (Eardrums), & Times Squared

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STADIUM DEVILDARE

Full-Length, 90 Minutes

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THE ELEKTRA FUGUES

Full-Length, 90 Minutes

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THE CRY PITCH CARROLLS

Full-Length Play with Music

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WELLSPRING

Opera

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RED FROGS: A Burlesque Mirror For The Summer Purgatorio
Unit Set (Glass-box/Aquarium Inspired Summer Home) 6 W or 5 W and 1 M (20s-30s) any race

"Edgy, confrontational…a seething chambermaid probes the resentments and psychosexual fantasies in the rituals of domination and submission that bind her to an unseen mistress. When an abrupt reversal of power, worthy of Jean Genet, puts her in charge, she mutates into an equally oppressive monster before contemplating the final leveler of human experience.” – Los Angeles Times

“…[L]anguage rejuvenated, snapping and humming, proving pliant and newly elastic... moving sleekly from sentimental visions of childhood to warped sexual fantasies…to spasms of self-hatred.” – Backstage West Review (Los Angeles)

“Entertaining, odd and sexy...like a sculpture or work of art or music, each spectator will have a highly individualistic idea of what is taking place.” – Show Business Weekly

“Where the play's the star” – New York Magazine

“A joyful glee-ride through a landscape of contemporary culture blurred and distorted by tidal waves and the author's own wicked sense of humor...bursts with joie de vivre...a roller coaster of fun.” – American Theater Web

"Cherish good avant-garde theater, like Red Frogs at P.S. 122...brilliant ideas build on one another…and the stage and audience share an in-on-the-joke camaraderie...” – NewYorkTheater.Com

Commissioned by P.S.122 through the Jerome Foundation and NYSCA/Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. An excerpt of this play was workshopped by Bottom’s Dream Theater at the 2000 Common Ground Festival by Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theater Projects, directed by Ian Belton in June, 2000 (Los Angeles). Red Frogs received a reading at New York Theater Workshop and at the Gershwin Hotel by the Hourglass Group directed by Elyse Singer (New York) and a workshop in January 2001 with director Beth Milles with Bottom’s Dream Theater. A monologue excerpt for Penny called "The Burlesque Flogging" was directed by Jim Martin with work by Erik Ehn and Mac Wellman at Bottomsdream for the 2001 "Edge of the World Theater Festival" to critical acclaim (Los Angeles). Red Frogs was directed by Elyse Singer for Perishable Theater's 2002 Textplosion Reading Series January, 2002 (Providence). Red Frogs premiered directed by Elyse Singer, co-produced by the Hourglass Group February 28 - March 24, 2002 at P.S. 122 (New York) and as part of the Moscow Contemporary American Reading Series at the Bolshoi Zal in Moscow (Russia) this July 2002. It was published in the November, 2002 issue of American Theatre.

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JUDGES 19: BLACK LUNG EXHALING
Score by Nikos Brisco
Folk Operetta 1 M, 1 F (20s-30s) any race
No Set, Very Portable

"...an album-length play...hypnotic...brutal...story submerged under snarling chords, darkly sung monologues...it's all in the songs... ...a baptism of fire..."--The Austin Chronicle

"A series of ballads whose instrumental simplicity contrasts with its ornate lyrical intensity...the thickly textured imagery and wordplay that Margraff and Brisco impart possess enough frissions for a full novel written in verse… in this potently hewn piece of rural American mythology." -- The Dallas Observer

"Original Sin...brilliantly performed...layer after layer of richly textured emotion...imminent danger...with precision of cadence and inflection..."--The Dallas Morning News

Judges 19 was first presented at the 2001 Fronterafest Long Fringe at the Rude Mechanical’s Off Center (Austin, Texas) and May, 2001 by the Undermain Theater (Dallas, Texas). It has also been presented by the 2001 Beogradski Letnji Festival at the Konak Knjeginje Ljubice/The House of Countess Ljubica Museum in (Belgrade, Serbia) in June, 2001; and excerpts in Istanbul (Aymakent, Turkey) in August, 2001 with the support of an ITI/TCG Travel grant; and at HERE Arts Center in November, 2001 (New York); Perishable Theater in March, 2002 (Providence, Rhode Island); and the Moscow Contemporary American Series with the support of a grant from Arts International in July, 2002, featured by The Moscow Times (Moscow, Russia).

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NIGHT VISION: A THIRD TO FIRST WORLD VAMPYRE OPERA
With Fred Ho (Score/Concept) 4 M (20s-30s), 1M (40s-50s), all singers, 1W vampyre
Jazz Opera Unit Set with Jazz Orchestra, Video, Microphones, High Fashion Night Club

She’s 2000 years old and she’s blowing away the pop music industry with her voice. But nobody knows she sings with two hearts in her throat…first-world heart – to get the club kids lusting for her autographs -- Third-world heart – for vengeance. Inspired by crusader art, Iraqi desert songs, Times Square erotica, and Hong Kong action cinema, NIGHT VISION is a bloodcurdling transfusion of Fred Ho’s operatic jazz and Ruth Margraff’s neo-biblical libretti.

Commissioned by the 1999 Rockefeller Foundation Multi-Arts Projects and the Joseph Papp Public Theater. Developed by NYTW and Audrey Skirball-Kenis (Los Angeles), Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio Study and Conference Center (Italy) and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and with Cameron Mackintosh Foundation Funds. Concert score at Cooper Union Great Hall, New York (1999). Premiere with HERE’s “Opera Project”/Big Red Media, New York (2000). Published by Autonomedia, Inc. See, www.bigredmedia.com.

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THE CRY PITCH CAROLLS
Christmas Operetta, Score by Matthew Pierce 1M, 4W
Unit Nativity, “Snow”

Set in a nostalgic nuclear winter, three widow creatures approach a nativity crèche erected in their snow by an Amazing Bible Smuggler’s Wife and a Small Christ who explodes his manger. Inspired by traditional carols and Ishpeming, Michigan, this operetta uses startling tableaux, euphoric vibrato, and artificial aging to create a futuristic world of sacred relics and a stray poodle/nativity lamb in the state of grace.

Commissioned by HERE’s “Opera Project,” and a NYSCA Individual Artist grant, premiered at HERE (1998); Salvage Vanguard Theater (1999). Published by the 2000 NuMuse Anthology from Brown University and www.salvagevanguard.org.

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WALLPAPER PSALM
An Electric and Hysteric Operetta
One Unit, Minimal 2M (20s-30s), 2W (late 40s to 60s) 2 Guitars
or CD available from Undermain Theater

“Transcendent…hallucinations backed by electric noise and haunting vocals…stark and disturbing images tap your subconscious for days after your initial viewing…” – Austin Chronicle

“This punk operetta moves beyond what we know and into what other people believe…Profane intentions…over a pounding dark chorus from the band…” – Austin American Statesman

Produced by Salvage Vanguard/Overtone Industries, Austin/Los Angeles (2000); Undermain in Dallas (1999); Red Eye in Minneapolis (1997); DTW’s Hit & Run Festival (1998); Salvage Vanguard premiere in Austin (1996); Brown University New Plays Festival (1995). Published by Salvage Vanguard Press, 1996 NuMuse Anthology from Brown University, and Conjunctions 28: Music Theater Portfolio.

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THE ELEKTRA FUGUES
An Operatic Black Box Recording
One Unit 4M, 1 Drag Queen (Clytemnestra), 3W

“The sheer beauty…of Ruth Margraff’s free-wheeling adaptation of the Electra legend about a family crashing and burning creates a hypnotic montage of words and literary images…Rhythm substitutes for tone, so there are no arias to speak of -- rather, soliloquies and overlapping rants – what the author aptly describes as “choral flotsam.” Sophocles’ play is about how the weight of vengeance destroys a family; Margraff’s is about pulling body parts from the wreckage…a discrepancy of style and power that would work against Margraff’s play were it about traditional storytelling and psychology. But it’s not. And it doesn’t.” – Los Angeles Weekly

“This cascading libretto...spinning emotional and scientific orbits...eloquently subtle symbiosis...Elektra's guttural ravings...of a cunning pattern -- but you can't put it down...more a series of theatrical events musically structured with little regard for stage convention...vocal endurance of a quintet of Diamanda Galases...words would form into motivic images sliding into unison...mesmerizing dynamic of rich material and uncanny...”-- Village Voice

Originally scored by Matthew Pierce for a 7-piece chamber orchestra for HERE’s OPERA PROJECT (1996) but produced as an a cappella play at Bottom’s Dream in Los Angeles (1999). Also developed by the Lincoln Center Library Reading Room Series.

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ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINESE AMERICA…
A Martial Arts Ballet Co-written with Fred Ho 10 Martial Artists, Jazz Orchestra
Unit Set

A seventeenth-century martial arts legend is transformed into an epic adventure fable of intrigue, opportunism, betrayal and revolutionary redemption. Combining music, theater and fantastical Chinese Martial Arts, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINESE AMERICA… is a heroic story of the betrayal of the legendary Shaolin Temple by a renegade monk Gar Man Jang who allies with the Manchu imperial forces to destroy the temple. ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINESE AMERICA… is a pioneering and multicultural fusion of both Western and Eastern dance movement forms. ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINESE AMERICA… challenges the cultural commodification and pop-culture idiocy of such fake martial arts as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Xena, Mighty Morphine Power Rangers and David Carradine/Kung-Fu and educationally entertains the youngest of children as well as the most jaded of adult performance audiences.

Premiered at the JVC Jazz Festival at the John Harms Center for the Arts (1999) and Guggenheim Museum Works In Progress Series/Big Red Media (1999).

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CENTAUR BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO
One Act, An Extended Barroom Brawl
Unit Set, Preferably Barroom 5M, 1W, 1 or 2 Acoustic (Bluegrass) Guitarists

Commissioned and premiered by Salvage Vanguard Theatre (1997); Public Theater's 1997 "New Work Now"; Brooklyn College/La Mama Galleria (1998); Nominated for a Biodin Paine Award by Austin Circle of Theaters; Top Ten Best Plays of the Austin Chronicle; Published by Salvage Vanguard Press.

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LOCKET ARIAS
Six Monologue 6W
No Set

HERE Theater’s THE COURTESAN (1996); Mac Wellman Festival at House of Candles (1998).

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EXOTICA ORANGE
One Act
No Set 2M, 3W, ensemble

Produced by the 1999 Ice Factory at the Ohio Theater and Mabou Mines Artist Residency.

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ALL THOSE VIOLENT SWEATERS
One Act 2W

Columbia University Workshop, (1999); Medicine Show, NY (1993).

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VINYL PRESSINGS: Huipil for Hijos, Bicycle Built for Two, (Eardrums), & Times Squared
One Act 2M, 3W vocalists, 2-3 live DJs spinning.