Chicago 1893: The Zoopraxiscope, cracker jacks and neon lights. The Ferris Wheel, hootchy-kootchy… hell they even had the hamburger! On the eve of a glowing new century, something terrible happens in a humble two-story home. And everything ends. Chicago 1933: When The Fair returns 40 years later, so do the unfinished histories of everything that could have been. And so things begin for the hermit upstairs and the mysterious look-a-like below.

Inspired by the Chicago World’s Fairs of 1893 and 1933, theater impresario Steele Mackaye and dangerous turn-of-the-century technology, The Untitled World’s Fair Play is being developed in part at the 2011 and 2012 Sundance Institute Theatre Labs and is supported by a grant from The Greenwall Foundation.

Soon, the story spread…Whispers in the basement bars of the homes around the neighborhood. Rumors served at the soda shop. Kids, terrified, telling trembling tales in tents in the backyard. …He’s out there.

PREMIERING OCTOBER 3rd, 2012 at THE BUSHWICK STARR

Untitled Blood Play has been in development via residencies at The Bushwick Starr and the Clubbed Thumb/Playwrights Horizons SuperLab and is supported by a grant from the Six Points Fellowship, a partnership of Avoda Arts, JDub Records, and the Foundation for Jewish Culture, and made possible with major funding from UJA-Federation of New York.

This downtown gem, full of minor-key revelations and offhand epiphanies, roots its quirky charm in an earnest and surprising realism. Charming, offbeat, sneakily funny. CRITIC’S PICK

-The New York Times

Script now available
from Samuel French.

Two cops . . . in the kind of quiet little town where a kid dreams of growing up to be a fireman. Or a racecar driver. Where the only question you ask yourself at the end of the day is if you’re gonna knock back your cold one at Swanky’s, Spanky’s or Zingers. A town where neighbors pitch in to help neighbors in need. And where if you wake up in the middle of the night . . . you should keep your eyes closed. Because the man in red is there in the corner. Watching you. Smiling at you with his yellow eyes and black teeth. Best to pretend you’re still asleep.

Written by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen
Directed and developed by Oliver Butler

Featuring: *Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen,
*Monique Vukovic & *Michael Cyril Creighton

Set Design by Laura Jellinek
Lighting Design by Mike Riggs
Costume Design by Sydney Maresca
Sound Design by Nathan Leigh
Stage Manager: Amy Ehrenberg
Assistant Stage Manager: Shelley Miles

This production was originally produced in association with the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator at the Ontological Theater at Saint Mark’s Church in Spring 2010.

In January 2011, Buddy Cop 2 was presented at Atlantic Stage 2 in association with Performance Space 122 as part of COIL - an annual winter festival of contemporary performance featuring hits from the past, present and future seasons of Performance Space 122.

Buddy Cop 2 was made possible in part by grants from The Greenwall Foundation, The Mancini Foundation and public funds from the Fund for Creative Communities, supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Production design support provided by The Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation.

*Equity Approved Showcase- Appearing courtesy Actors’ Equity Association

Photo by Ian Savage

Under the brilliant and rigorous direction of Oliver Butler, the Debate Society certainly doesn’t disappoint in this bizarre but deeply winning homage to the drive-in cinema of yore.

The New Yorker

A decaying drive-in comes to life with stories of lighthouses, naughty little girls and places you imagine remembering. So sit back, relax, refrain from loud talking and rough-housing, turn off your headlights, enjoy some tasty popcorn, put litter in its place, keep an eye on your children, think about how happy we could be, and remember that this country is full of dark, dark places along dark, dark roadways where dark, dark things can happen.

The Debate Society’s fourth full-length play transforms the performance space into their own version of a drive-in theater to present an intimate and absurd perspective of classic Americana. The Brooklyn based play-makers conjure a road trip epic wherein “The lives, desires, and memories of various passengers take a number of sharp and darkly comic turns over the course of one night, dissolving into three studies of bittersweet disenchantment.” (The New Yorker)

Joining co-writers Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen onstage is actor Michael Cyril Creighton and acclaimed NY actress, Drama Desk and two-time Obie Award winner and Emmy nominee Pamela Payton-Wright . . . who is also the mother of Cape Disappointment director Oliver Butler.

Cape Disappointment was commissioned by Performance Space 122 and premiered there in November, 2008.

PRESS

Filled with more funny and spellbinding moments than just about any other production on or off Broadway.

John Del Signore, The Gothamist

Cape Disappointment is a wonderful gift of a show. It is haunting, gentle, elliptical, poetic, humorous, bittersweet, occasionally startling and intense but always true.

-Andy Horwitz, Culturebot

Lush stagecraft and atmospheric bliss… A singular experience of high style and excellent craftsmanship. The best play by The Debate Society yet.

-Mitch Montgomery, Offoffonline

Four stars. Critic’s pick.

-David Cote(Theater Editor), Time Out New York

A bizarre and thrilling new play.

-Show Business Weekly

Hilarious and horrifying.

-New York Press

TOUR

For information on booking The Debate Society please email info@thedebatesociety.org.

CREDITS

Directed and developed by Oliver Butler
Written by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen
Starring Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen, Michael Cyril Creighton and Pamela Payton-Wright

Production Creative Team
Lighting Design - Mike Riggs
Sound Design - Nathan Leigh
Costume Design - Sydney Maresca
Scenic Design - Karl Allen
Animation - Tony Candelaria and Stef Choi
Voice Overs - Hal Douglas and Brian Grosz

Cape Disappointment was developed with the support of chashama, the CUNY Prelude Festival, Dixon Place and The Fusebox Festival and made possible in part by grants from The Puffin Foundation, The Mancini Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation and public funds from the Fund for Creative Communities, supported by the New York Stage Council on the Arts and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

A flawless work of theater. Fresh and filled with theatrical magic. Indulge it now while you still can.

Aaron Riccio, New Theater Corps

The Debate Society’s third full-length work, The Eaten Heart is inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th century masterwork The Decameron. The essence of Boccaccio’s characters and stories flavor The Debate Society’s creation: a modern lucid dream of loneliness, longing and desire that matches The Decameron’s penchant for hilarious, erotic and occasionally gory twists. “Wizardly actors” (Gothamist) Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen seamlessly shift among over a dozen different characters seeking refuge in the anonymous security of a remote roadside motel. Their stories loop and multiply as the strangers check in and out, rendezvous, plot and then disappear again back onto the lonely highways.

The Eaten Heart was named the #3 show of 2007 by Aaron Riccio of “Show Showdown” and Hannah Bos and Nathan Leigh’s work garnered them notice as Gothamist’s Best Actress and Best Sound Design of 2007. The play opened in the spring of 2007 at Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in New York City and was brought to Syracuse, NY by The Red House Arts Center in September, 2008.

Coming soon!

RECOGNITION

Gothamist’s Year in Theater 2007
Best Actress: Hannah Bos
Best Sound Design: Nathan Leigh

The Best Theater of ’07, Aaron Riccio, Show Showdown
Top Five Shows: #3 - The Eaten Heart
Best Company: The Debate Society

OffOffOnline
Pick of the Week

PRESS

Flawlessly directed. Awesome in scope and bold in execution. The result is, quite simply, great theater.

Sean Michael O’Donnell, Show Business Weekly

Boldly imaginative and spellbinding stuff, thanks in no small part to Bos and Thureen’s nuanced performances. At turns hilariously endearing and hauntingly sinister, their inspired mix of ingredients makes for a four star feast.

John Del Signore, Gothamist

A well-acted play of significant depth, slick staging and flawless production design.

Mitch Montgomery, OffOffOnline

A cornucopia of vivid acting and inspired staging.

Gothamist’s “Best of a Year in Theater”

A joyous and lightheaded celebration of Bos and Thureen’s remarkable skills . . . a showcase for two splendid actors to strut their stuff. The quick changes and transformations are near miraculous, the shifts in costume and temperament are downright astonishing.

Martin Denton, nytheatre.com

TOUR

For information on booking The Debate Society please email info@thedebatesociety.org.

CREDITS

Written and performed by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen
Directed and developed by Oliver Butler

Production Creative Team
Lighting Design - Mike Riggs
Sound Design - Nathan Leigh
Costume Design - Sydney Maresca
Scenic Design - Amanda Rehbein
Stage management - Amy Ehrenberg

The Eaten Heart premiere production was produced in association with The Ontological-Hysteric Incubator and made possible in part by a chashama/NEA Performance Development Award, a generous contribution from The Mancini Foundation, and public funds from the Fund for Creative Communities, supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Represents everything great about independent theatre. Performances of enormous craft, intellectual rigor and a grandly emotional pay-off. Absolutely gorgeous.

-Backstage.com

The populations of the world have been decimated in a global epidemic. Apocalyptic weather has washed civilization into the ocean. A little girl has survived… and she is growing feathers!

The Snow Hen spends her days fishing for remnants of civilization that float in with the tide, each new day unearthing memories of her vanished family. Her lonely existence is broken by a haunted wanderer, a giant survivor, who crashes into her world. They fall for each other, and then they fall apart.

Based on the Jostedalsrypa myth which emerged from the Black Death of the 14th century in Norway, The Snow Hen pairs with The Eaten Heart as two-thirds of The Debate Society’s planned “Black Plague Trilogy”. The play was developed with the help of a Sons of Norway Foundation Heritage and Culture Grant and a Chashama AREA Performing Arts Grant and premiered at The Charlie Pineapple Theater in Brooklyn, NY in February 2006.

Coming soon!

PRESS

The Snow Hen was the best thing I saw all season.

Mitch Montgomery, OffOffOnline

Bos and Thureen will take you on a ride that’s sometimes funny, sometimes touching, and always weird, and you will be glad to have gone along.

-Gothamist

Oliver Butler has homed in on the play’s haunting melancholy, and all elements of the production – design, sound, lights, performance – blend seamlessly.

-OffOffOnline.com

Haunting, melancholy, and oddly hilarious . . . masterful.

-Flavorpill

An enchanting new work.

-nytheatre.com

TOUR

For information on booking The Debate Society please email info@thedebatesociety.org.

CREDITS

Created and performed by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen
Directed and developed by Oliver Butler

Creative Team
Lighting Design - Mike Riggs
Sound Design - Nathan Leigh
Costume Design - Sydney Maresca
Scenic Design - Hannah Bos, Oliver Butler and Paul Thureen
Stage management by Amy Ehrenberg
Featuring the voices of Pamela Payton-Wright and Adam Silverman