THE BLUE FLOWER is a critically-acclaimed music theater project that began in 1999 as a performance art song-cycle that has since been developed in New York City with generous support along the way from THE PUBLIC THEATER'S "New Work Now Festival" (2001) and JOE'S PUB (2001-02), HERE Art Center's Artist Residency Program (2002-03), the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop Program (2003), the RICHARD ADLER/ASCAP FOUNDATION Musical Theatre Development Program (2003), and the PERRY-MANSFIELD SCHOOL FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS Workshop Program (2003, Steamboat Springs, CO).
Recipients of a 2004
Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation award and finalists for the
American Academy of Arts and Letters Richard Rodgers Award in 2005, the husband & wife team of musician Jim Bauer and visual artist Ruth Bauer created
THE BLUE FLOWER through a unique collaboration as a "four-dimensional stage collage", their imaginations lit by the fat and unhappy Belle Epoque, the chattering birth of Dada in 1916, and the restless lives of artists before, during and after The Great War. The show had its first fully-staged production at the first annual
New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2004 (Will Pomerantz directing, with cast members Jean Arbeiter, Andrew Dawson, Marc Geller, Todd Alan Johnson, Jamie LaVerdiere, Meghan McGeary and Clayton Dean Smith). In Feb/March 2008, the show was presented by
The Prospect Theater Company in an off-off Broadway production at The West End Theater (Will Pomerantz directing, with cast members Nancy Anderson, Jason Collins, Jamie LaVerdiere, Meghan McGeary, Marcus Neville, Robert Petkoff and Eric Starker).
THE BLUE FLOWER is a sponsored project of
The New York Foundation for the Arts
FOR GREATER DETAIL on the project, its production history, a wealth of music, photos, historical background on Dada, The Great War and the Weimar Republic that provide the landscape for the show, and even a hidden, on-topic, non-gratuitous, elegantly-presented Victorian Porn Gallery (see if you can find it), visit the official Blue Flower website at
www.theblueflower.org.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT
Max Baumann, a famous German artist (based loosely on the historical figure Max Beckmann), emigrates to the United States after World War II and dies alone in New York City's Central Park in 1955. The show is a playful and emotionally-charged Dada-inspired romp through closely-held memories unleashed at the moment of Max's death, centering on three friends and lovers he lost (based loosely on the historical figures Hannah Höch, Franz Marc and Marie Curie) and the apparitions of events that overwhelmed their lives during World War I and the restless postwar years of The Weimar Republic in Germany. The story unfolds through the pages of a FairyTale book of collages Max has been working on for years and that come to life on stage with the aid of the 9-piece Weimarband, fanciful silent films, and a cast of seven singer-actors.
WHAT OTHERS SAY
"A MODERN DADAIST MASTERPIECE . . . the most exciting and necessary kind of theatre possible . . . The performances are crafted with such extraordinary delicacy that they seem to have been born from the floor of the stage . . ."
"AN EXTRAORDINARILY MOVING EVENING . . . adventurous theatregoers willing to surrender to the highly stylized and surreal presentation should be enthralled."
"A UNIQUE, INTELLIGENT AND WONDROUSLY CREATIVE evening of musical theater."
"HISTORY THAT'S MADE BREATHTAKING . . ."
"MASTERFULLY CREATED . . . Meghan McGeary gives a tour de force performance . . . Jamie LaVerdiere shines . . . Nancy Anderson was brilliant"
"SPECTACULARLY INVENTIVE blend of gorgeous music, historical drama, and videography"
"THEATER WITH A CAPITAL 'T' . . . brave, strong, unexpected and exhilarating . . . as delightful as it is moving, as smart as it is beautiful."
"BEAUTIFUL, RAVISHING . . . an incredibly personal musical world, and yet, enormously evocative and universal."
STEPHEN SCHWARTZ (composer/lyricist, Wicked)
"I'M STRUCK that a show with The Blue Flower's originality has been written with such craft. I love its unflinching nature. It has so much to say . . . it's bursting. Every word is unexpected."
MARK HOLLMAN (composer, Urinetown)
"THE MELODIES of Tori Amos, Sweeney Todd and southern rock meet a country/classical chamber band. Throw in some accordions and Dada lyrics and you have the ultimate postmodern sound."
FRANK OTERI (editor, New Music Box)
"I LOVE THIS, just wild about it. It's not going to be a normal show, no matter what you do, and that's great. If anyone tells you to 'normalize' this, just run . . . and run fast"
STUART ROSS (writer, Radiant Baby)
DAGMAR
Jim Bauer's latest project is
DAGMAR (see myspace friends below), a song cycle about a guy who can't get out of bed in the morning and an insect goddess who plunges through the ether to rescue him. The six-piece
Dagmar The Band, which features Bauer on vocals and guitar and Blue Flower veteran
Meghan McGeary on vocals, assorted percussion, melodica and flute, has been performing in NYC and Boston since June 2005. "Door No.1", the first in the planned 3-part, 3-CD song cycle was released in Sept. 2006. "Door No. 2" is slated for recording in the spring of 2007. Bauer and McGeary also tour as the "high dintensity" duo
DAGMAR 2. DAGMAR 2 is also now performing on the streets and in the subways of NYC as one of the new artists selected in 2007 by the MTA's Music Under New York (MUNY) program to receive a lifetime license for busking in the primo locations of the NYC subway system. For more information visit DAGMAR in myspace:
myspace.com/dagmartheband or on its website:
www.dagmartheband.com
