600 HIGHWAYMEN
600 HIGHWAYMEN (moniker for artists Abigail Browde & Michael Silverstone) constructs expansive performances that illuminate the inherent poignancy and theatricality of people together — exploring a radical approach to making live art, and constructing events that create intimacy among strangers. Developed using creative methods ranging from the mainstream to the peculiar, their work is a rigorously tuned investigation of presence and humanity — not only in performance, but in process and aftermath.
shows
A THOUSAND WAYS
Created by 600 HIGHWAYMEN
Executive Producer: Thomas O. Kriegsmann / ArKtype
Project Design/Dramaturg: Andrew Kircher
Line Producer: Cynthia J. Tong
World Premiere, Part Two – Festival Theaterformen in Germany, July 2-12, 2020
World Premiere, Full Production – On The Boards, Seattle, WA, September 2020
A piece that reimagines and reconnects live-ness, built for right now. In a time when we’re accustomed to division, when isolation is required, A Thousand Ways the latest theater project by Obie Award winning 600 HIGHWAYMEN, offers a chance to experience new ways of coming together. This quietly radical experiment is a three part journey that takes place over several months, with each distinct installment presenting a new chance at making simple contact with a stranger. This is a path toward finding our way again. Something will be broken. Something will be built.
600 HIGHWAYMEN provides the instructions, the map, the recipe. All we need is you.
ISOLATION (Fall 2020)
Using a carefully crafted set of directives relayed over a simple phone call, you and another audience member both strangers take a journey together over the course of an hour.
RE-ENTRY (Spring 2021)
You and a stranger meet on opposite ends of a table, separated by a pane of glass. Using a script and a few simple objects, a simple exercise of working together
becomes an experience of profound connection with another person.
CONGREGATION (Summer 2021)
A public convening made up of you and every stranger from the project’s journey. Together we follow a shared score. This final installment is a chance to feel the power and complexities of group assembly.
This production was commissioned by The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi and Festival Theaterformen, and was originally commissioned and co-conceived by Temple Contemporary at Temple University, USA. Original support for the production was provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Philadelphia.
Stage: Various / Site Specific
Capacity: 100-10000
Traveling Personnel: 2
Running time: 70 min per Act
Manmade Earth
Created by 600 HIGHWAYMEN
In conversation with and performed by Nur Aisyah, Nasra Ali, Raiza Almonte, Dimyana Angelo, Amanda Barsi, Augustin Bonane, Jeanvier Nkurunziza, and Diaaeddin Zabadani
Original Music & Sound design by Michael Costagliola
Production Design by Eric Southern & Deb O
World Premiere: October 2019
A complex portrait of 8 young Americans and their audience, who, together, explore the distance between all of us — the assumed and the real; the past and the present — and the possibilities that come about from sharing a space. Performed by eight teenagers from all over the world (DR Congo, Egypt, Malaysia, Somalia, Syria, Tanzania, and the United States) who each bring to the stage a unique story and path to this country, MANMADE EARTH digs deep into questions of belonging; who we’ll support, the ways in which we can support, and the nature of performance and spectatorship itself.
Built over a year of conversation with the ensemble, with text by Silverstone and Browde. Produced in partnership with Torn Space Theater in Buffalo, NY. World premiere at The Invisible Dog Arts Center in 2019.
Stage: Blackbox Format
Capacity: 100-350
Traveling Personnel: 14
Running time: 80 minutes
The Fever (premiere 2017)
The Fever tests the limits of individual and collective responsibility, and our willingness to be there for one another. Performed in complete collaboration with the audience, The Fever examines how we assemble, organize and care for the bodies around us. Who will you be when our eyes are on you? What will we see when we all look your way?
Stage: Blackbox
Capacity: 60-85
Traveling Personnel: 7
Running time: 70 minutes
Language: English
Performance space: 40′ x 27′ min.
Freight: Minimal
The Record
45 strangers come together for 61 minutes to show us who they are, and who they could be. Part theater, part dance, part group hallucination – vivid human assembly on an epic scale. The subject is us; the time is now.
Created in phases of collaboration with local cast and presenter.
Stage: Proscenium
Capacity: 100-500
Traveling Personnel: 7
Running time: 60 minutes
Language: n/a
Freight: Minimal
Employee of the Year
Five young girls perform one woman’s journey, from beginning to end. Intimate and arresting, Employee of the Year asks what it is to discover your own path and find your own way in life. With original songs by Obie Award-winner David Cale.
Stage: Proscenium
Capacity: 100-600
Traveling Personnel: 11
Running time: 75 minutes
Language: English
Freight: Minimal
calendar
The Fever
February 8-9, 2019 | Williams College ’62 Center for Theater and Dance CenterStage | Williamstown, MA
Feb 28 – March 2, 2019 | Wesleyan University Center for the Arts | Wesleyan, CT
March 22-23, 2019 | Portland Ovations | Portland, ME
April 11-21, 2019, Democracy Is Coming! Onassis USA with The Public Theater, New York, NY
June 4-9, 2019, Spoleto Festival, Charleston, SC
Manmade Earth
July 20-21, 2019, Lumberyard (Manmade Earth Workshop), Catskill, NY
Sept. 13-15, 2019, Crossing the Line Festival @ Invisible Dog, Brooklyn, NY