at La MaMa ETC
Thursday, April 16th, 8pm
Friday, April 17th, 8pm
Saturday, April 18th, 8pm
Sunday, April 19th, 2:30pm
Sunday's performance followed by a discussion on:
"Dzieci, Grotowski, and Art as Vehicle"
with Hovey Burgess, Jane Hughes Gignoux, and Jeana Musacchio
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
74A East Fourth Street (between 2nd Ave & Bowery)
Midnight Fools Mass at The Cell:
Saturday Night, April 11th, at midnight
the cell
338 West 23rd Street (between 8th & 9th Ave)
Suggested donation $15
doors open 15 minutes prior to performance
call 718 638 6037 for more information
or e-mail us
check out our listing in Offbeat New York
Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine
December 2007
photo by Fred Hatt
Dzieci's signature piece, Fools Mass, is celebrating its 10th year of performances.
After a series of successful presentations in December and January, this April
we are honored to present a week-long run of this seminal work at LaMama ETC,
the theatre that introduced the work of Jerzy Grotowski to America in 1967.
Additionally, we are pleased to offer a Midnight Fools Mass at The Cell Theatre,
the exciting new space that provides an outstanding venue for experimental theatre.
As this season marks the tenth anniversary of Fools Mass, so it is also the tenth anniversary
of the death of Jerzy Grotowski, the father of Dzieci's theatrical lineage, the Poor Theatre.
It is no accident that the mythic priest of Fools Mass is named Father Jerzy.
The piece has always been a tribute to Grotowski and a memorial.
Though company director, Matt Mitler, studied primarily with Ryszard Cieslak,
Grotowski's lead actor, and had intense contact with the rest of the members
of the Polish Theatre Laboratory, his interactions with Grotowski himself
were brief. But not so brief as to leave him unaffected.
"When Grotowski died, I felt daunted by a wave of responsibility.
How could I continue to serve this heritage? And if I didn’t, who would?
Ten years later, these questions still resound in me. May they always continue to do so."
Matt Mitler, company director, commentary from the program notes
press release
poster (pdf)
For a personal account of the experience of Fools Mass, click here (pdf)
to read an excerpt from the diary of Jessica Bockler, a European scholar
who is including Dzieci in her research on 'theatre as a transformative practice'.
Dzieci is the New Brunswick Theological Seminary
2008-2009 Helen Studdiford Kleis Visiting Artist.
Fools Mass is profiled in the new edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion.
"Dzieci is a wonderful example of the spiritual intensity possible
when theatre engages the age-old mysteries of faith and
the human experience.We at the Cathedral found
the very stones of our monumental building
coming alive through their presence."
Canon Tom Miller
Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine
Union Theological Seminary
14 December 2007
video: Fred Hatt
hosted by YouTube
More Music::
recorded live at SoundCheck at the WNYC studios
(MP3 files, ~1.3mb)
Tourdion (Pierre Attaignant, 1530)
Domine Non Sum Dignus (Tomas Luis de Victoria, 1593)
Psalm 130 (Claude LeJeune, 1606)
