The Immediate Present
Created and performed at 78 Kingsland Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
February & March 2008
The Immediate Present was created site specifically in a former morgue/coffin factory. After two months of rehearsals in the rambling atmospheric building, the performance installation that emerged was loosely based on time, memory and space. Six characters, living and dead, repeated and reworked moments of their lives, shedding attachments as they struggled to move on into other realms.
In addition to live performances with audience, the piece was shot and edited into a 60 minute film. In this form, The Immediate Present exists as a video art installation in its own right.
Watch the trailer (13.2MB opens is a pop-up window)
Devised by and Featuring Brian Farish, Laura Jensen, Anna G. Jones, Eric Ramey, Erhard Schöeffmann, Maggie Surovell
Conceived and Directed by Anna G. Jones, Laura Jensen (associate director)
Dramaturg Roweena Mackay
Lighting Designer Burke Brown
Costume Designer Lia Cinquegrano
Video by David Dixon, Ryan Fenson-Hood, Jahil Maplestone, Martin Varagon
Producers David Dixon, Laura Jensen, Anna G. Jones, Nouriel Roubini, Company Members
Co-developed by Stephen Conrad Moore, Sarita Covington, Desiree Matthews, Christianna Nelson, Sarita Sirota, Benjamin Vershbow
Supported by Individual Donors
Audience Response
"A hugely innovative and exciting piece....a sense of haunting and oozing of past and present was communicated right away...the leaky layers of history...it was such a physical representation of everything a story should be on stage as well, but so often fails to be - a journey where you are almost breathless on each turn because you have no idea what is happening next...the whole show was so very unique."
"It was immediately terrifying. The haunting images created leave one standing and watching, wondering, in dread, what will happen next...all this takes place in the seemingly abandoned, enormous structure where the spectators move along with the action and the actors, along the way witnessing short but disturbing scenes, with sparse dialogue and no apparent connection yet eerily realistic. I stood (as most do for the entire 50 minutes or so) mouth agape, scared to move at times, in awe of the powerful simplicity in which the actors worked and the dangerous mood the directors created in the dead of Winter."