THE NERVE TANK IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE BROOKLYN LYCEUM PRESENTS LIVE/FEED

Written by Chance D. Muehleck

The Cold War meets the War on Terror. Bodies meet the floor. LIVE/FEED is a movement theater mash-up that focuses on the actors’ physical relationships with each other and with the performance space. The text becomes a navigational tool for these discoveries. Inspired by an apocryphal quote (“May you live in interesting times”), the project deals with issues of control in a violent and chaotic landscape. Featuring original music and immersive, site-responsive design.

“This piece was conceived back when the company was formed,” explains co-founder Muehleck. “We’ve workshopped parts of it, but we feel that now is the time to finish it. The world is still on pins and needles about a lot of things: war, money, the right to privacy. LIVE/FEED is a product of these fears.”

LIVE/FEED will feature Stacia French, Karen Grenke*, Robin Kurtz*, Mark Lindberg, and James “Face” Yu. *Appears courtesy of the Actors’ Equity Association.

The creative team will include Sound Design and Original Music by Stephan Moore, Costumes by Candida Nichols, and Sets originally designed by Solomon Weisbard reimagined by Melanie S. Armer.

The production, presented by The Nerve Tank in association with The Brooklyn Lyceum, will play at The Brooklyn Lyceum (227 4th Avenue, Brooklyn), May 7 & 8 at 8pm, May 12-14 at 8pm, May 20-22 at 8pm, May 23 at 3pm, and May 27-29 at 8pm. Tickets ($18/$15) are available by calling Brown Paper Tickets at 1-800-838-3006 or online at www.brownpapertickets.com.

Named One to Watch in 2010, THE NERVE TANK was founded in 2006 by Melanie S. Armer and Chance D. Muehleck. The Nerve Tank is an incubator for theatrical performance. The members collaborate in a spirit of artistic adventure, and their rehearsal methods lie outside the traditional models. Combining elements of popular culture, mediated image, and physical presence, the company tests lines of engagement between spectator and live event.

Based in New York, The Nerve Tank has staged works at Theatre for the New City, chashama, The New York International Fringe Festival, Dixon Place, and Pittsburgh’s Flux Festival. They are currently the resident theater company of The Brooklyn Lyceum.

“The Nerve Tank provides the type of experimental theatre that reminds one of Beckett’s most thought provoking pieces… this company provides so much food for thought, audiences will be intellectually satiated.” Michael Roderick, Broadway World

“Much like its subject matter, bauhaus the bauhaus… is a thoughtful, well-researched project that demonstrates keen insight into contemporary life.” Li Cornfeld, Off Off Online

“Perhaps the most successful and interesting notion in bauhaus the bauhaus is the stripping away of the artifice of art. All of the technology required to make a work of theatre is thus presented to the audience…”
Martin Denton, nytheatre.com

“Through a series of vignettes, games, gestural dances, and found texts, writer-assembler Chance Muehleck primes his ensemble to speak in the breathless tones of early-20th-century utopianism.”
Christopher Grobe, The Village Voice

MELANIE S. ARMER (Director) is the co-founder of The Nerve Tank, where alongside writer & co-founder Chance Muehleck she developed and directed bauhaus the bauhaus, A Gathering and currently LIVE/FEED in residence with the company at The Brooklyn Lyceum. Previous to the company’s residency she also helped create In The Heart of a Chinese Curse at Dixon Place as a part of their “Under Construction” series in 2008 and The Attendants at chashama in the fall of 2007. Other collaborations with Muehleck include directing the 10-minute version of A Gathering, created for Open Stage’s Play-In-A-Day and remounted by Dog &Pony in Pittsburgh, and Tagging April for FLUX and in Valdez, Alaska. For The Nerve Tank’s parent company LIVE Theater Company she has produced and directed the world premieres of Jane Shepard’s Eating the Dead and Muehleck’s The Honeypot Redux. Ms. Armer’s work with other NYC theatre companies includes The Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Women’s Project & Productions, New Georges, Theater for the New City, the 2002, 2005 & 2007 NYC Fringe Festivals, and over 25 plays for Circle East (formerly Circle Rep). In Pittsburgh she directed As Bees In Honey Drown and Sympathetic Magic at The Open Stage Theatre (where she also served as Managing Director), and The Cay at Prime Stage. Ms. Armer assisted Leonard Foglia on the Broadway revival of Wait Until Dark and director Michael Warren Powell on Lanford Wilson’s A Sense of Place. Ms. Armer is the Associate Producer of Contemporary Programming at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, a member of SSDC, a proud alumnus of The Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and has taught at Marymount Manhattan College and Point Park University in Pittsburgh.

CHANCE D. MUEHLECK (Writer) is a creator of play texts, theatre assemblies, and concepts for performance. His work has been developed or produced at Theatre Artists of Marin in California, and at Circle Repertory Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and The Present Company in New York. Primary Stages commissioned him to write a short play on the American experience, which was then presented Off-Broadway. He is the recipient of the John Golden Award for Excellence in Playwriting and was a finalist for the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Heideman Award. His multimedia performance installation The Attendants was developed while in residence at chashama. He is Co-founder of The Nerve Tank, an independent theatre based in New York that produces collaborative art for the twenty-first century. His physical theatre piece LIVE/FEED was work shopped at Dixon Place. Chance has taught playwriting at Hampshire College and Point Park University, has written reviews for The New York Theatre Experience, and served as an adjudicator for the New York International Fringe Festival. As a dramaturge he assisted Tammy Ryan with her play Baby’s Blues at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Two of his monologues appear in the Audition Arsenal series published by Smith & Kraus. In 2008 United Stages published his short play Tagging April in the collection En Avant Playwrights. His memberships include The Dramatists Guild, Inc. and Circle East.